Albanian Insurers get higher Income

TIRANA, Jan.16- Official statistics released on Friday by Insurance authorities showed that for 2006 Albanian insurers’ gross premium income rose by 5.4percent. The figure is calculated up until last October to be around 3.6 billion leks ($37.2 million/28.8 million euro). Mandatory insurance policies, mostly covering third-party liability were the best sellers for the 10 insurers operating in Albania which earned a cumulative 2.4 billion leks in gross income in the first ten months of 2006. This was 9.56 percent higher than the same period one year earlier, according to the report of Albania’s Insurance Supervision Authority. Almost 67 percent of all policies sold in Albania through last October were mandatory assurance products. The same period in 2005 had only 64.43percent. Income from voluntary insurance went down by 2.13 percent, totaling 1.2 billion leks, data from the report showed. The leader in the market for life insurance, which in Albania is offered only by three main insurers, was INSIG. It had a 42.51percent market share. This company is still state-owned but is expected to be privatized within this year. The life insurance providers had a cumulative gross premium income of 239.6 million leks up until October 2006, up 34.53percent from 2005. The other main company, which is private, Sigal kept the largest market share in the non-life insurance segment with a 27.67percent at the end of October, up from 27.38percent at the end of the previous month. The money paid out to claims was 5 percent higher and totaled almost 1 billion leks. The average claims ratio, or claims paid as a percentage of premiums received, in the non-life insurance segment was 30.63 percent, up from 30.15 percent a year earlier.