Gross premium income of insurance market grows by an annual 26.7%

TIRANA, July 30ؔhe gross premium income of Albanian insurers rose by an annual 26.5% in the first half of 2009 to 4.06 billion Lek (31.3 million euro), data from the Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) indicated on Thursday.
Gross premiums from non-life insurance rose by an annual 26.11% to 3.7 billion Lek through June, FSA said in its monthly report. The number of non-life insurance policies increased by an annual 30.4% to 333,777.
Gross premiums from life insurance totaled 340 million Lek, 31.3% higher on the year. The number of life insurance policies rose by an annual 15% to 28,673.
Albania’s ten insurers paid 788.4 million Lek in claims through June, up by 23.4% on the year. The number of claims in the six-month period increased by an annual 1,491 to 6,100, of which only 31 were life insurance claims.
Sigal, INSIG and Sicred are the only companies to offer life insurance services in Albania.
Sigal Life ranked first on the life insurance segment with a market share of 54.8% in the first half of 2009, up from 36.7% a year earlier. Sicred ranked second with a 24.6% market share, down from the 28.5% it had a year earlier.
Sigal also ranked first on the non-life insurance segment with a 28.2% market share, slightly up from 27.9% a year earlier. Sigma, whose share fell to 15.9% from the 16.15% it had through June last year, ranked second.