Life insurers’ net profits have fallen during the third quarter this year compared to the corresponding period last year, according to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s (APRA) quarterly statistics.

This quarter the industry reported net profits of $657 million, compared to $976 million in the 2009 September quarter. No reason for the fall was given in APRA’s report.

Net premium revenue was up in the 2010 third quarter to $10.8 billion compared to $9.9 billion last year.

This was countered with net policy payments of $10.1 billion compared to $9.9 billion during the 2009 September quarter.

Life insurers’ assets rose slightly during September to $234.7 billion compared to $229.7 billion in the corresponding period last year.

The insurers have also improved their management capital requirements by 50% to $3 billion in the September quarter this year compared to $2 billion in 2009.

The prudential capital coverage for life insurers was 2.14 in the September quarter, compared to 1.69 in the corresponding quarter in 2009.