The highest claim last year, 55 million lei (around EUR13 million), was paid by Generali for damages to the Dragonul Rosu shopping center, caused by a fire. Asirom paid one claim of RON34.5 million (EUR8 million) and another of more than RON7 million.
Astra, the largest company on the insurance market, paid over RON12.6 million for such a claim on the property segment. Astra used an aggressive growth strategy for this segment in the last two years, while it was vehicle insurance that brought it first place in the past.
The Austrians at Uniqa paid RON2.4 million for a property claim, while the largest claim paid by Omniasig was worth almost RON2 million.
The high damage claims are usually paid for industrial, office buildings or shopping centers. Individual clients generally insure their property for tens or hundreds of thousands of lei.
Sales of fire and natural disaster insurance policies exceed RON1 billion in the first nine months of last year, an increase of almost 85% compared with the same period of 2008. In January-September alone, gross underwritten premiums on this segment grew 35%. The insurers with the most property policies in their portfolio are Astra, Allianz-Tiriac, Omniasig, Generali and Groupama.
Damage claims paid for this segment increased 2.5 times during the crisis, reaching RON194 million in the first nine months of 2011.
Insurers have begun fighting fiercely to attract clients on this segment, amid talks on mandatory home insurance. Mandatory policies were introduced in the middle of 2010, but their number is no higher than 600,000 contracts and has steadily gone down in the last few months.
By comparison, at the end of September, the number of voluntary policies signed by the members of insurers’ organization UNSAR was 5.3 million, up 60% compared to the first half of the year.
(English version by Radu Bostan)