Albanian Insurers get a higher annual premium income

TIRANA, Feb.5 – The insurance industry keeps at high premium levels. Albania’s Insurance Supervision Authority released its eleven-month report on its website that showed the gross premium income till November rose by 8.53 percent compared to last year reaching four billion leks ($41.7 million/32.2 million euro). The best seller were as usual mandatory insurance policies, mostly covering third-party liability. The latter generated 2.7 billion leks in gross income for the 10 Albanian insurers in the first eleven months of 2006.
Mandatory insurance accounted for 67 percent of all policies sold in Albania through last November, compared to 64.51 percent for the same period of 2005. This was 12.71 percent higher than same period last year. Voluntary insurance generated 1.32 billion leks, up 0.93 percent on the year, according to the same report by the insurance regulator said. Albanian insurers paid out more than 5.5 percent higher claims reaching 1.15 billion leks. The average claims ratio, or claims paid as a percentage of premiums received, in the non-life insurance segment was 30.62 percent, down from 30.87 percent a year earlier. Three out of the ten insurers offer life insurance.
They reported a combined gross premium income of 261.8 million leks for the first eleven months of 2006, up 35.73 percent from the year-ago period. INSIG was leader in the life insurance segment with a market share of 41.09 percent. The company is still largely state-owned but is going to be privatized soon. Privately-owned Sigal kept its leading position in the non-life insurance segment with a market share of 27.43 percent at the end of November, slightly down from 27,67 percent at the end of the previous month.