THE insurance regulator is reimposing ceilings on funds insurers can put into the stock market, in the latest move to control risk and limit how much insurance assets are invested in listed companies.

    Insurers will be restricted to investing no more than 5 percent of their total assets, as of the end of the previous quarter, in a single stock, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) said in a statement Tuesday.

    Insurance firms also will be restricted to placing no more than 30 percent of their total assets in equities, the statement said.

    The rules return China’s insurers to investment limits that were in place ahead of the stock market crash in 2015, when the regulator loosened rules to boost stock purchases.

    “Quitting the temporary market rescue policy will help insurance companies prevent stock investment concentration risks,” the CIRC said in Tuesday’s statement.

    Insurance firms will have two years or more to lower their investment allocation to the required level, the statement said.

    China’s insurers have invested 1.2 trillion yuan (US$174.96 billion) in stocks, accounting for no more than 10 percent of invested insurance assets, the CIRC said in the statement.

    In recent weeks, the CIRC has rolled out new rules aimed at limiting risk, by tightening the shareholding structure at insurance firms and limiting how insurance assets are invested.

    Those measures include lowering from 51 percent to one-third the biggest stake a single shareholder can take in an insurance firm and forbidding insurers to use wealth management funds to invest in themselves.

    The CIRC also has announced rules to tighten compliance management systems. (SD-Agencies)