* China Life H1 profit up on stock market, misses estimates
* Gross written premiums, policy fees rose 10.8 percent in H1
* Sees uncertainties in capital market
* Shares closed up 0.6 in Hong Kong before results
(Adds details, company and analyst comment)
By Michael Wei and Doug Young
BEIJING/HONG KONG, Aug 25 (Reuters) - China Life Insurance Co, the country's top life insurer, sounded a positive note for China's fledgling economic recovery but also warned of uncertainties as it posted a weaker interim profit than expected.
"In the second half of 2009, China's economy will become stabilized with a positive outlook, but the base for growth remains unsecured and there are still uncertainties in the capital market," China Life said on Tuesday in a statement.
China Life, which leads rival Ping An Insurance (Group) Co in the mainland market, said it earned 18.2 billion yuan ($2.7 billion) in the first half, compared with 15.8 billion yuan a year earlier.
That was well below a market consensus of 22.8 billion yuan, based on five analysts polled by Reuters, as a large decline in dividend income caused net investment income to drop 25 percent to 18.9 billion yuan.
Second-quarter profit rose about 17 percent to 8.53 billion yuan, based on Reuters calculations on data under Chinese accounting standards.
Its smaller rival Ping An earlier this month posted a 34 percent jump in second-quarter earnings as China's stock market boom boosted investment returns, although first-half profit slumped 46 percent to 5.2 billion yuan.
China's life insurance market, dominated by China Life and Ping An, has seen an increase in penetration in recent years, thanks to Beijing's focus on health care and the rapid economic growth in the world's third-biggest economy.
China Life's gross written premiums and policy fees rose 10.8 percent to 87.9 billion yuan in the first half of 2008.
UOB Kay Hian analyst Sheng Nan said he expects the company's premium growth to be in the high single-digit percentage range going forward.
INVESTMENT YIELD DOWN
The company's net investment yield inched down to 1.92 percent in the first half from 2.99 percent a year earlier, while net realised gains on financial assets surged 15 times to 11.9 billion yuan from 742 million yuan.
The Beijing-based insurer booked 1.4 billion yuan in gains from changes in fair value resulting from a capital markets boom, while it made a loss of 6.5 billion a year earlier.
Chinese insurance firms raised their investment portfolios by more than 5 percent in July, bringing the total for the first seven months to $358 billion, state media said earlier this month, citing the country's insurance regulator.
Shanghai's stock market, on which China Life depends for a sizeable portion of its investment income, is down about 17 percent from a peak hit in early August but is still up some 60 percent so far this year.
Under current regulations, Chinese insurance companies are allowed to invest up to 10 percent of their assets directly in stocks and 15 percent in mutual funds.
China Life's Shanghai-listed shares have risen almost 50 percent so far this year while its Hong Kong-traded shares are up around 40 percent, matching a rally in the benchmark index. ($=6.83 yuan) (Reporting by Michael Wei; Editing by Dhara Ranasinghe and Jon Loades-Carter)