Annual growth in Chinese insurance premiums slowed to 42 percent in the first 11 months of the year, down from 47 percent in January through October, state media cited the top insurance regulator as saying.
Still, insurers' premiums came to over 915 billion yuan ($134 billion) in January through November, the Xinhua news agency cited Wu Dingfu, chairman of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC), as telling a conference on Saturday. Insurers paid out 267.5 billion yuan in claims during that period, up 32.7 percent from a year earlier, Xinhua said.
"Regions hit by blizzards in January and the earthquake in May have received insurance compensation of 5.5 billion yuan and 1 billion yuan respectively," Xinhua quoted Wu as saying. However, Wu cautioned that while premiums were still growing quickly, insurance firms' investment income was shrinking.
Insurers earned around 93 billion yuan from their investments in January through November, down nearly two-thirds from the same period a year earlier, Xinhua said. The country's main stock index, the Shanghai Composite has lost nearly 65 percent of its value this year. Authorities have been encouraging insurers to broaden their investment channels, allowing them to buy equity in private firms and prodding them to put more money into infrastructure projects.