Insurers' profits up on stock gains

Premium income of firms jumps 18.16% to 3.66 trillion yuan by the end of 2017

Chinese insurers saw profits soar 29.7 percent year-on-year to 256.7 billion yuan ($39.5 billion) in 2017, mainly driven by a handsome investment return from stock market activities, the industry regulator revealed on Monday.

Thanks to structural opportunities, the country's insurers gained 118.4 billion yuan from the capital markets last year, a surge of 355.5 percent on a yearly basis, statistics from the China Insurance Regulatory Commission showed. The investment return on capital hit 5.77 percent in 2017, up 0.11 percentage point from the previous year.