China Life, the country's largest life insurer, reported Wednesday a 53 percent jump of premium income from January to November, hitting 280.8 billion yuan by the end of last month.

However, the month-on-month growth rate shows the pace has slowed down. China Life raked in 16.2 billion yuan in premium income in October, up 41.6 percent on a yearly basis. But November's premium increased by a mere 16 percent.

Zhou Guang, an analyst with CICC said in his report that China Life's slow down is mainly due to the shrinking premium from the bancasurance channel.

He also estimated that the country's premium income could still maintain a growth rate of 40 percent for 2008.

(China Daily December 18, 2008)