Insurance companies compensate 18 million euros bills

TIRANA, July 2- Insurance companies have paid in total as damages compensations over 2.3 billion lek (18 million euros) in the first five months of this year. Official data on the insurance market published by the Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA), showed that insurance companies paid 3.73 percent more than the previous year for this spending category. The FSA estimated that most of the gross paid damages belong to vehicle insurance with about 1.32 billion lek (10.5 million euros), or 56.33 percent of the total gross damages paid. Regarding the overall performance of the insurance market, this institution reported that income from gross written insurance premiums for January to May amounted to 6.75 billion lek (55 million euros), or 7.61 percent more than in the same period last year. For January and May 2019, the number of consigned insurance contracts is 482,741, with a 5.22 percent increase compared to 2018. The FSA explained that the market continued to be oriented to non-life insurance, which brought 92.19 percent of the total premium volume, leaving Life insurance with 7.23 percent and reinsurance activity by 0.57 percent. From the point of view of market sharing by type of insurance, compulsory and voluntary, gross voluntary insurance premiums occupy 40.25 percent and gross written premiums of compulsory insurance account for 59.75 percent of the total market. Just as it happens traditionally, the main dominance in this market is that of compulsory vehicle insurance. Premiums from this insurance amounted to 4 billion lek (32.5 million euros), or over 6 percent more than a year earlier. The FSA also added that the domestic MTPL product (motor third party liability insurance) in the period January to May had a 5.36 percent increase in the volume of gross written premiums. The Green Card Product in January-May increased by 12.25 percent of the volume of gross written premiums. The Border Insurance Product had a 12.07 percent decrease in gross written premiums in the period January to May.