'If HSBC has no insurance business in China, we could not be called one of the world's largest insurance companies and China's largest foreign bank.'

China's total life insurance premiums amounted to 733.8 billion yuan in 2008, up 48 percent from the previous year, the second in scale in Asia after Japan. But its insurance penetration, or premiums as a percentage of the economy, was low at 3.3 percent, said David Fried, board chairman of the joint venture and chief executive officer of HSBC Insurance for Asia Pacific.

HSBC also holds 16.78 percent of Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. of China, the country's second largest life insurer.