TIRANA, August 2 – Gross written premiums during the first half of this year registered a 2.15 percent year-on-year decrease, dropping to 3.97 billion lek (around 40 million dollars), the Financial Supervisory Authority said in its monthly report.
The number of insurance contracts signed over the January-June period dropped to 306,501, or 15.4 percent less compared to the same period in 2009.
The market continued to be non-life oriented with about 90 percent of the overall premiums volume, leaving life insurance with a share of about 9 percent. Gross written premiums from voluntary insurance account for 49.79 percent, while compulsory insurance premiums for 50.21 percent of the market premiums.
Compulsory motor insurance premiums dropped to around 2 billion lek, 7 percent less than the same period in the previous year.
Claims paid during the first six months increased by around 30.48 percent year-on-year. Most of the gross paid claims were related to motor insurance, some 861 million lek, or 85.4 percent of the total.
Meanwhile, voluntary insurance premiums increased to 1,97 billion lek, or 3.74 percent more than the same period in 2009. However, the number of insurance contracts fell by about 29.8 percent year-on-year.
According to the Financial Supervision Authority, Albania continues to be one of the countries having the lowest annual consumption per capita of insurance.
Albanians pay on average 20 dollars annually for compulsory and voluntary insurance of vehicles, property and life, a small amount compared to other European countries.
The insurance market continues to be dominated by Sigal which holds 26 percent of the compulsory and 37 percent of the voluntary market, according to the Authority.
The market is shared by 8 main companies which control from 6.6 to 26 percent in the compulsory market and 3.71 percent to 37 percent in the voluntary insurance market.
State-owned insurer Insig, which has been put on the privatization list of public assets, is currently the fifth biggest insurer, controlling 7.6 percent of the compulsory market and 11.7 percent of the voluntary.
Other companies operating in Albania are Sigma, which is the second biggest insurer with around 16 percent of the market share followed by Interalbanian and Atlantic.
Intersig and Albsig are the smallest operators controlling only 3.7 percent and 4.5 in the voluntary insurance, according to the January-June data of the Financial Supervisory Authority.
Secondary market dominated by T-Bills
The secondary market of government securities was dominated by transactions in short-term instruments (T-Bills) at 93.59 percent and long-term instruments (notes and bonds) at 6.41% in January-June 2010, the Financial Supervisory Authority said in a report. In terms of the number of transactions, 98.8 percent of all transactions in the secondary market of government securities were in T-Bills.
Statistical data on the government securities retail market for January-June 2010 indicate that the market was dominated by transactions under “Sales from financial intermediary portfolio” and “Settlement of nominal value at maturity” of 20.47 percent and 51.94 percent of the total volume, respectively.
Participation in the government securities secondary market was dominated by individual investors, who performed about 95.92 percent of all transactions in the market.
B-type transactions, sales from financial intermediary portfolio, increased by 321.31 million lek (6.25%) in January-June 2010 compared with 2009, but were hit by a 3.74 percent drop in the number of transactions.
C-type transactions, purchase from individuals prior to maturity, increased by 897.55 million lek (135.59%) in January-June 2010 compared with 2009, registering an increase of 118.50% in the number of transactions.
Compared with January-June 2009, there was a rise in the combined absolute total amount of the transactions of B- and C-type, by about 1.2 billion lek.
Voluntary Pension Market
The private voluntary pension market has a small share of the Albanian non-banking financial market.
Despite the significant increase in contributions and number of contributors by 40.86 percent and 8.63 percent, respectively in the first half of 2010 this market is still below its real potential for further development, said the Financial Authority.
