(Yicai) May 6 -- Combined profit at five Chinese mainland-listed insurance firms shrank by 17 percent in the first quarter from a year ago after stock markets slid, crimping the fair value of their financial assets.

The five insurers had total net profit of CNY68.9 billion (USD10.3 billion) in the three months ended March 31, Yicai calculated based on their reported earnings. Profit fell at three, including a more than 30 percent plunge at China Life Insurance, while New China Life Insurance and China Pacific Insurance recorded gains of 11 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively.

Kaiyuan Securities had already warned that first-quarter profit at the five insurers could shrink by about 20 percent from a year earlier.

Their total investment income climbed by CNY58.5 billion, but fair-value gains and losses sank by CNY120.4 billion (USD17.7 billion), negatively impacting profit by CNY61.9 billion.

According a report by Huaxi Securities, stock index declines during the quarter, compared with a year earlier, weighed on both investment income and fair-value performance at the insurers. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.9 percent, the China Securities Index 300 slid 3.9 percent, and the Hang Seng Index dropped 3.3 percent.

Even so, analysts believe the profit decline was largely a reflection of short-term swings in the equity market and does not alter the underlying value of the insurance companies.

Their property and life insurance liabilities improved notably in the quarter, while funding costs should keep easing, according to the team led by Sun Ting, chief strategy officer and chief analyst of non-banking finance at Dongwu Securities. The pressure on yields from new fixed-income investments may ease further as long-term interest rates recover, it added.

Editor: Futura Costaglione