Insurance premiums to cover 5% of China's GDP: report

The headquarters of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission in Beijing. [Provided to China Daily]

BEIJING - China's insurance industry will continue its rapid growth in coming years, with premiums expected to account for 5 percent of the country's GDP by 2020, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) said Tuesday.

In its industry report, the CIRC projected that Chinese will pay an average of 3,500 yuan (about $570) per capita in insurance premiums by 2020, making China the world's second-largest insurance market behind the United States.

The rapid growth will translate into about 4.55 trillion yuan worth of premium revenues for the country's insurers by 2020, compared with 1.72 trillion yuan at the end of last year, according to the CIRC report.

Insurance companies have insured the Chinese public under nearly 3 billion insurance contracts as of the end of 2013 and have paid an accumulated 3 trillion yuan worth of claims, said the report.

Total assets of China's insurance industry reached 8.95 trillion yuan by the end of the first quarter of 2014, up 7.93 percent from the start of the year, according to the CIRC.

Foreign-funded insurers, however, remain relatively weak in the Chinese market by grabbing only a tiny market share of 3.95 percent among 142 business offices set up by 123 overseas insurance companies, according to the CIRC.