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Romania Insurance Report Q4 2011
Business Monitor International, Sep 2011, Pages: 75
Business Monitor International's (BMI) Romania Insurance Report (Q4 2011) provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, insurance associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on Romania's insurance industry.
It appears that the general environment for Romania’s insurance sector remains difficult. The optimism expressed by some companies in their public comments and quarterly accounts appears to be premature. As BMI discusses below, total premiums are shrinking. Life insurance has moved beyond the (extremely) low density levels of other countries in Central and Eastern Europe where customers do not trust insurance companies enough to use life insurance as a long-term savings product, such as Ukraine and Russia, however, it remains extremely underdeveloped in Romania. There is a good chance that non-life penetration will go back below 1% of GDP in 2011. For the sector as a whole, the real risk is that it becomes irrelevant to the major regional and international insurance companies that dominate it. Even if premiums grow a lot faster than BMI expects, the opportunities elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe will likely appear much more exciting.
The key trend in the non-life segment is intense price competition in the major auto-related lines. Premiums for voluntary car insurance (CASCO) and compulsory motorist third-party liability (CMTPL) cover were about a fifth lower in Q111 than in Q110. Because of the dominance of these lines in the nonlife segment – they account for about two-thirds of premiums – this contraction more than offset growth in other areas. Property and fire premiums, for instance, were up about 11% year-on-year (y-o-y). It appears that the non-life insurers are able to pass on the elevated claims costs of 2010 to their customers at a time when claims have fallen quite sharply, as has been the case across most of Central and Eastern Europe.
The best that can be said about the life insurance segment is that it is no longer shrinking. This is in a country where too many users of life insurance see their policies as a source of ready cash. The life segment has suffered much more from the volatility of Romania’s economy over recent years than the non-life segment. However, it would be wrong to suggest the segment has returned to bonanza conditions. Strong growth of 14% y-o-y in premiums for traditional life insurance products in Q111 has been almost totally negated by 11% y-o-y decrease in premiums for unit-linked products. It is not clear what could be the catalyst for substantial development of the life insurance sector, which is very far from serving as a significant conduit for organised long-term savings in Romania.
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