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China's top 3 insurers post mixed Q1 premium income

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-04-15 13:02

China's three biggest insurers reported mixed insurance premium revenue growth for the first quarter of this year from a year earlier, with the Ping An Insurance (Group) Co posting a 37 percent jump on Wednesday.

Top insurer China Life Insurance Co said on Tuesday premium revenue grew a marginal two percent in the first three months of this year, but China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co posted a five percent fall in premium revenue for the quarter on Wednesday, their separate statements said.

Ping An, China's second largest insurer, reported 49.02 billion yuan ($7.18 billion) in premium income for the first quarter, giving no comparative figures.

Related readings:  Ping An executives say confident about 2009 premiums  China big life insurers' premiums up in Feb  Premium income of Chinese insurance industry up 39.1% in 2008  China Pacific Insurance's premium income dips in Jan

It posted 35.73 billion yuan in premium revenue for the same period last year.

Larger rival China Life, the world's biggest life insurer by market value, collected 104 billion yuan in premiums in the first quarter, it said, compared with a previously reported 102.2 billion yuan a year earlier.

China Pacific's first-quarter premium income dropped to 29.2 billion yuan, compared with 30.6 billion yuan a year earlier.

China's insurance market, dominated by the Big Three, has grown dramatically this decade as the government dismantles a cradle-to-grave welfare system, although the rate of premium growth in individual companies varies greatly.

Last year, Chinese insurers collected a combined 978 billion yuan in insurance premiums, up 39 percent from 2007, the fastest annual growth since 2002.