SHANGHAI - China's insurance premium income continued its fast growth with a 37.3 percent increase year-on-year in the first half of 2016, according to the country's top insurance regulator.

Premium income reached 1.88 trillion yuan ($282.5 billion) in H1, according to recent statistics from the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC).

Premium income of life insurance companies climbed 50.3 percent to hit 1.4 trillion yuan. Property insurance companies' premium income rose 8.5 percent to hit 463 billion yuan.

An expansion of marketing staff and increased profits for insurance products have led to the growth in life insurance premium income, said Ding Wenjie, an analyst with CMB International.

China's insurance sector saw its best performance in 2015 since the global financial crisis, with premium income reaching 2.4 trillion yuan. The sector added 1.8 million jobs last year and another 560,000 jobs in the first four months of this year, the CIRC said.