"The Ukrainian insurance market occupies, in the present, the 24th place (out of 35 countries), with underwritings higher than in the previous year in countries such as Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia and Bulgaria", Alexander FILONIUK, President of the Insurers League of Ukraine, said in the opening of the "VIIIth Yalta Forum of Insurance Market Participants".
The insurance industry in Ukraine has known a great development in the recent years, reaching a volume of the underwritings at the end of 2007 of USD 3.47 billion. The nominal increase, compared to 2006, was 26.67%, due mostly to the development of the life segment, which increased by 50% in 2007 (the highest growth in the life insurance segment recorded at European level, in 2007).
"The dynamics of the Ukrainian insurance market is considerable. This is not out of the ordinary, considering the potential of our country for the insurance industry," Alexei VOLOSHIN, President of the National Committee for Regulation of the Financial Market, said. According to the representative of the Supervisory Authority of Ukraine, a main feature of the Ukrainian profile market is a low concentration of the underwritings' volume, at the level of the first companies from the insurers' top, compared to other European countries.
"The first 10 companies at national level own only 27% of the market, while the first 20 own a little over 50%," the quoted official completed. One of the explanations for this state of affairs is the very large number of companies, with similar power, present on the market (over 400).
This element is a strong incentive for the existent competition on an internal level. Moreover, it is an explanation for the many foreign investors who want to conquer a dominant position on the profile market (AXA, PZU, ALLIANZ etc.).
In this context, Andrzej KLESYK, CEO of the PZU group, one of the companies that intends to spend considerable amounts of money for developing the business in Ukraine, said: "We see Ukraine as an extraordinary opportunity and we (PZU) can contribute a lot to the development of this industry.
Our company is of Polish origin, and we believe this is an advantage: we understand the market in Ukraine better than our competitors". "There are many similarities between the market in Poland and the Ukrainian one. We stipulate that the evolution of the latter will be similar to the evolution that has already taken place on the profile market in Poland", Andrzej KLESYK completed.
"The absence of the concentration present on most European markets emphasizes that the Ukrainian insurance industry is a young one. However, the tendency is obvious, is only a matter of time until a much bigger part of the underwritings will be included in the results of the first companies in top", the representative of the Supervisory Authority of Ukraine explained. From another point of view, Ukraine is open to new investors. At this time there are 87 companies on the market which have foreign capital.
