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Poland Insurance Report Q1 2012
Business Monitor International, Dec 2011, Pages: 79
Business Monitor International's Poland Insurance Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, insurance associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on Poland's insurance industry.
Among the countries that have joined the EU over the last 10 years, Poland has often been seen as the country that is too large to ignore, and with good reason. This explains many of the clear strengths of the Polish insurance sector. Foreign multinationals have delivered capital, know-how, product innovation and the benefits of economies of scale to Poland - and to a far greater extent than in other countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The former (wholly, now partially, state-owned) monopoly insurer continues to operate as an independent entity - unlike in the Czech Republic (especially), Slovakia or Hungary - and is competing effectively on the basis of price, brand, product innovation and distribution. Unlike in other countries in Central and Eastern Europe, there has not been cutthroat competition in auto-related non-life lines, which continue to dominate that segment.
As of November 2011, it appears that all of the strengths of Poland’s insurance sector have remained intact. To the extent that companies have suffered from lower profitability, it is mainly because of the volatility in investment markets in Q311. In the non-life segment, the absence of catastrophe-related losses that blighted early 2010 has also been a major plus. Across both the life and the non-life segments, companies have increased premiums, whether as a result of higher prices, exploitation of new distribution channels or the development of new products. For 2011 as a whole, we think that it is reasonable to look for double-digit growth in the life segment and high single-digit growth in the non-life segment.
Still, there are grounds for caution. Non-life density is still well below where it was in 2008 - meaning that it is not yet correct to say that life insurance has established itself as a major conduit for organised savings in Poland. The remarkable stability in non-life penetration at around 1.6% of GDP - through good times and bad - is a strength. However, it is also a weakness in a medium-income country like Poland, in that it suggests that there is no obvious catalyst to take the segment to the next level of development. It could well be that specialised risks (and reinsurance needs) are covered in London or elsewhere in the global market. In the recent past, announced departures from the sector have generally been a result of extraneous problems that have nothing to do with insurance in Poland: KBC’s plans to sell WARTA (and Kredyt Bank) are a case in point. However, it is not clear that all the multi-nationals who currently have a presence in Poland will wish to stay. Further consolidation is likely.
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