Life insurance un Hungary, down by 21,3% in the first nine months
Hungarian insurance companies specialized on the life insurance market have wrote EUR 1 billion in premiums in the first nine months of 2009, a decrease by 21,3% in comparison to the same period of the last year. Thus, "financial market turmoil significantly reduced demand of life products in 2008 and the recessionary pressure on household income will further reduce this demand throughout 2009", stated Csaba VARGA, General Director of the Hungarian Supervisory Authority at the Vth International Congress "World Views for Life Insurance in Eastern Europe, CIS, and Asia", organized recently in Moscow by the RUSSIAN Polis Information Group.
The official also mentioned that the Real GDP is expected to fall by 6.7% in 2009 and the unemployment rate will increase to 9,9% in 2009, from 7,8% in 2008.
"The insurance industry as a whole faces several risks and challenges going forward, of which the most prevalent are financial risks and those related to depressed equity markets", added VARGA. In this context, the authority performed surveys on companies exposure to property and credit insurance and completed several stress test based partly on QIS4 exercise of CEIOPS, concentrating on interest rate risk, equity (investment) risk, liquidity and reinsurance etc.
Hungarian insurance sector (life) is dominated by foreign owned subsidiaries and branches (19), competing with some (3) local owned ones. ING holds the leader position on this market (21% market share) followed by AEGON and GENERALI (11). In 2009, VARGA estimates a total volume of premiums of about EUR 1,3 billion, compared to EUR 1,6 billion written in 2008.
