TIRANA, May 2 – Claims paid out in Albania’s insurance market registered a significant drop in the first quarter of this year as insurance premiums stood almost unchanged.
Data published by Albania’s Financial Supervisory Authority shows claims paid out in the motor vehicle dominated insurance market dropped by 22 percent to 1.1 billion lek (€9 million) as market operators saw their insurance premiums increase by a mere 2.5 percent to 3.5 billion lek (€27.6 million).
Almost 80 percent of claims paid out went to cover motor insurance in road accidents.
Albania has one of Europe’s highest death tolls from road accidents with an estimated 15 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants.
Some 370 road accidents took place in Albania in the first quarter of this year, with a death toll of 47 people, slightly lower compared to the same period last year, according to INSTAT statistical institute.
The compulsory motor third party liability accounts for about two-thirds of the small and underdeveloped Albanian insurance market with an annual turnover of €120 million, about 1 percent of the country’s GDP.
Insurance premiums in the eight private companies operating in the market grew by an annual 5.4 percent to about 16.2 billion lek (€121 million) in 2017, in a slowdown for the fourth year in a row as the market remains overwhelmingly non-life oriented and reliant on compulsory motor insurance.
