According to the Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) in its last annual report, the claims payments-revenues ratio in Albania is 2.5 times lower than the European average.
Despite the fact that claims payments by insurance companies have improved in the last years in relation to market revenues, they are still lowest in the region.
According to the Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) in its last annual report, the claims payments-revenues ratio in Albania is 2.5 times lower than the European average. If such indicator scores above 50% in the region, in Albania it amounts to less than 30%. FSA reports, that given the conditions, it has taken a number of initiatives to improve the market performance in this regard.
Insurance companies themselves admit the claims-primes ratio is low, but they argue that such performance is due to the relatively young and undeveloped market in Albania.
Albanian insurance market amounts to $70 million annually, averaging the lowest indicator in the region at only 20$ per inhabitant. In other countries, same indicator is many times higher.
In the first two months of 2009, the market showed improvement in regards to voluntary insurance policies, which counted for 59% of the all primes in the market. Voluntary insurance primes amounted to 812 million leke, or 41.28% more than the same period a year ago. At the same time, companies are losing revenue from compulsory incurance. Primes in compulsory insurance reached 569 million leke, or 17.44% less than the first two months of 2009.
Another interesting tendency in the last months is that companies have increased their total revenue, despite the fact that the number of contracts has dropped.
Total revenues for insurance companies in the first two months of 2010 amounted to 1.38 billion leke, a 10% increase from a year ago. At the same time, the number of contracted insurance policies recorded was 85 611, measuring an 18% drop from the same period in 2009.
