China's insurers posted strong growth of premium income from January to April due to a rebounding economy, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) said in Beijing Thursday.

For the first four months, premium income of the whole insurance industry topped 565.5 billion yuan (US$82.8 billion), up 36.58 percent from a year earlier, said CRIC.

Profits of insurers in the country surged 158 percent to 27.75 billion yuan (US$4.1 billion) from January to April, according to CIRC.

Market share of foreign insurance companies rose slightly to 4.07 percent in the January-April period with a premium income of 23.04 billion yuan (US$3.37 billion), it said.

Insurance funds, which include insurance companies' bank deposits, bonds and securities investments, totaled 3.97 trillion yuan (US$581.3 billion) in the first four months with a yield of 1.52 percent.