China's Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission has raised the maximum amount of assets that insurers can invest in equity assets, Reuters reported July 18, citing a statement from the regulator.

The insurers will now be able to invest up to 45% of their total assets, up from the previous limit of 30%.

Raising the cap on the investments will free up several hundreds of billions of yuan that can be invested into China's Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

When investing in a listed company, the regulator is only allowing investments of up to 10% of that company, the report added.