Chinese insurers posted a 25-percent rise in premium revenues last year as insurance remained one of the fastest growing industries in the country, a senior official said on Friday.

Total premium revenues reached 703.6 billion yuan (US$96.4 billion), from 564.1 billion yuan in 2006, said Wu Dingfu, head of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission. "Last year was the best year ever for the insurance industry."

China has the world's ninth highest insurance premium revenues, rising from the 16th in 2002 when the national figure was 279.2 billion yuan.

Premiums for property insurance surged 32.6 percent year on year to 199.8 billion yuan in 2007, while those for life insurance were up 24.5 percent to 446.4 billion yuan.

China Life, the country's largest life insurer, grossed 196.6 billion yuan in premiums last year, up seven percent. Ping An Insurance took in 100.7 billion yuan, up 17 percent.

Chinese insurers earned a total of 279.2 billion yuan from investment of their funds last year, a yield of 10.9 percent, compared with 5.8 percent in 2006.

Wu estimated the industry had an annual profit of 67.3 billion yuan, but he did not provide any comparable figures.

"Insurance has been one of China's fastest growing industries in the last five years, with an annual growth of 18.2 percent," he said. "Chinese insurers paid out a total of 680 billion yuan in indemnity in that time."

By the end of last year, Chinese insurers had 2.9 trillion yuan in total assets, up from 1.97 trillion yuan a year earlier, he said.

Chinese insurance revenues are expected to surpass one trillion yuan by 2010, with insurance assets reaching five trillion yuan, according to the country's 11th Five Year Plan (2006-2010).