BEIJING - Profits of China's insurance companies dropped an estimated 35.68 percent year on year to reach 156.96 billion yuan ($23.18 billion) in the first three quarters, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) said on Tuesday.

The rate of decline was less than the 54.05-percent drop in the first half of this year.

The CIRC attributed the drop to lower yields on insurance funds. From January to September, yields on insurance funds shrank 19 percent year on year to 483 billion yuan.

Duan Haizhou, a statistics officer with the commission, said that the insurance market expanded rapidly in the first three quarters as premiums grew 32 percent to 2.5 trillion yuan, already exceeding the total in 2015.

At the end of September, total industry assets stood at 14.63 trillion yuan, up 18.38 percent over the beginning of the year, according to the CIRC.