Insurance market up 35% y-o-y in January

TIRANA, Feb. 28 – New insurance premiums during January 2011 registered a record growth, climbing to 857 million lek, up 35 percent compared to January 2010, the Financial Supervisory Authority said in a report. For the first time in more than one year, the number of insurance policies registered a significant increase, with their number doubling to 97,046 compared to January 2010, when policies dropped by 25 percent, a declining trend which continued during the whole of 2010.
The market continued remaining non-life oriented with around 84 percent of the total premiums, leaving life insurance with a 15.7 percent share. Voluntary insurance premiums accounted for a majority of 62.4 percent compared to 37.5 percent for compulsory insurance.
Compulsory motor insurance in January 2011 grew by 12.8 percent to 322 million lek, accounting for 33 percent of total insurance premiums.
Meanwhile, voluntary insurance premiums grew by 53.37 percent to 535 million lek.
Gross paid claims grew by 31 percent to 116 million in January 2010. The majority of them, 58.6 percent of the total belong to motor insurance.
New insurance premiums during 2010 climbed to 8.2 billion lek (around 82 million dollars), up 4.17 percent compared to the January-December 2009, registering a significant drop compared to 2009 when the market increased by 11.3 percent year-on-year. The number of insurance policies continued declining during the whole of 2010, dropping to 736,278, down 2.57 percent compared to 2009, the Financial Supervisory Authority said in a statement.
During the January-December 2010, gross paid claims, the majority of which belongs to motor insurance, grew by a record 32.6 percent compared to the same period in 2009. A majority of around 83.2 percent of them, worth 1.9 billion lek (19 million dollars) went to pay motor insurance claims.
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 24 percent of the compulsory and 41 percent of the voluntary market, according to the Authority.
State-owned insurer Insig, which has been put on the privatization list of public assets, is currently the fifth biggest insurer, controlling 7.3 percent of the compulsory market and 11 percent of the voluntary.
All 10 licensed companies active in the sector are domestic, but since 2007 Albania has attracted increased foreign (EU) participation.