Though most insurers expect single-digit growth, largely driven by healthcare policies, the most optimistic of them see the market up 15% this year.
“The insurance market will rebound in 2013 and I therefore expect growth of 15% for the entire market, driven by health insurance,” says Alin Bucsa, general manager of Astra, the only Romanian-owned top insurer.
Astra budgeted for growth of 15% this year, as a result of expansion abroad.
Mariana Diaconescu, Asirom’s boss, has a more cautious forecast about the market trend and believes sales will increase especially on the health insurance segment, as the economy will remain relatively stable.
“The trend of policy sales is tightly connected to the trend of the economy and depends on the legislative changes that make an impact on the insurance market.”
Insurers’ revenue increased slightly last year after three years of decline in a row. Gross written premiums in the first nine months of 2012 reached 6.2 billion lei (EUR1.4 billion), up 1.4% according to the statistics of the Insurance Supervisory Commission.
Adrian Marin, chief executive officer of Generali, says the insurance market has growth potential over the next few years because of the low number of those insured compared with the other markets in the region. However, he expects sales to increase by 2% or 3% in 2013.
Florin Golovatic, general manager of Uniqa says that 2013 “will be as difficult” as last year. “We hope for an improvement in the customers’ perception of the benefits of insurance products, but I think the purchasing power will remain low. Overall, the insurance market will likely see slight single-digit growth.”
Golovatic is somewhat more optimistic about Uniqa’s business and says the insurer budgeted a two-digit increase in gross written premiums, with auto and property insurance contributing most of it. He is optimistic because Uniqa posted growth of 18% in revenue in January-September 2012.
Astra, too, budgeted for two-digit growth of 15%, the same as the estimate about the entire industry. Astra has been focusing on sales of home insurance lately but was unable to offset the decline of auto policy sales and therefore it ended in the red last year.
“We are focusing on the corporate segment, we want to keep our retail business and see international development as very important. We will also focus on health and life insurance, property corporate, general and professional liability insurance,” Alin Bucsa says.
Whereas Astra and Uniqa will mainly focus on selling general insurance policies, Asirom is considering consolidation of its position on the life insurance market, where its market share stood at 6% at the end of September 2012.
Generali will continue to make insurance for EU-funded investments a priority and its management says the strategy includes development of CMR (transporter’s liability insurance for the merchandise transported as carrier) for both individuals and companies.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)