Settlement of plane crash insurance claims underway: regulator

BEIJING -- China's insurance industry is actively settling the insurance claims from the China Eastern Airlines plane crash, the country's top banking and insurance regulator said on Wednesday.

As of Tuesday, four insurance companies underwriting the fuselage of the China Eastern Airlines aircraft, flight MU5735, had advanced the airline 116 million yuan (about $18.2 million), according to the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission.

In addition, 11 insurance companies have so far paid 14.85 million yuan to some of the bereaved families.

The regulator said it will make further efforts to advance follow-up work on the insurance claims.

The Boeing 737 aircraft, which departed from Kunming in Yunnan province for Guangzhou in Guangdong province, crashed in Tengxian county of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region on March 21. All 132 people on board the plane were killed.