BEIJING - Chinese insurance companies' premium income topped 189.2 billion yuan ($30.02 billion) in January, up 10.19 percent from a year earlier, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) said Monday.

In January, premium income from the property insurance business rose 3.77 percent to 49.5 billion yuan, while life insurance premium income jumped 12.67 percent to 139.7 billion yuan, the CIRC said in a statement on its website.

Previously, some industry insiders predicted that China's property and life insurance sector would enter a low-growth era this year compared to five years ago. But the January data has defied those predictions.

Earlier this month, the country's big insurers including Ping An Insurance and New China Life Insurance reported double-digit growth in premium incomes.

Analysts pointed out it is an industry tradition to pursue large amounts of insurance premiums at the beginning of the year.

By the end of January, the country's insurance industry had a total of 6.03 trillion yuan in assets.