Study: Romania's insurance market contracts, shows opposite trends to region

Unusually for the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region, the value of Romania's insurance market fell in 2011, according to a study by Ensight Consulting published today (March 27 ). Locally, the total value of gross written premiums dropped below EUR 1.9 billion (RON 8 billion) in 2011 – a decrease of 5.8 percent on 2010.

As well as being unusual for the overall decrease, the trends seen in the life and non-life insurance segments in Romania were the opposite of elsewhere in the region. Romania registered a 4.4 percent increase in the life insurance sector and an 8 percent decrease in the non-life market, while the norm for the region was a decrease in life and an increase in non-life insurance. The top 10 insurers by gross written premiums in Romania lost 2.4 percentage points of their market share in 2011 compared to the previous year. In 2012, the merger between Omniasig VIG and BCR Asigurari VIG, owned by Vienna Insurance Group, created a new market leader in Romania. The Ensight study found other trends on the local market, including an end of the price war between insurers and the growth in importance of online distribution channels. Increasingly, there is an emphasis on cautious evaluation of company exposure, according to the study. Finally, completed mergers and acquisitions have substantially reshaped the Romanian insurance market. Ensight Management Consulting claims the local market leader position in the management consulting market by revenue and number of consultants, according to company data. The company has a multinational management team of partners, who have worked in large-scale transformation projects across a variety of industries in strategic, tactical and operational assignments, according to the firm. Ensight's analysis is based on data from several European insurance supervisors, some of which publishedthe final 2011 figures at the end of January 2013, and includes the following countries: Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia and Bulgaria. editor@romania-insider.com