Dedicated to the Croatian and Slovenian markets, the show continued the series produced under the titles "Re/insurance markets facing the Covid crisis", reuniting top representatives from the CEE and CIS markets. The show's host was Daniela GHETU, Editorial Director, XPRIMM Publications.
"Croatian insurance industry is strong, very resilient and working within the robust Solvency II framework and I think we have managed to exceed even our customers' expectations. In very difficult circumstances, we have managed to pay out all the claims, we have managed, through business continuity, to handle all the contracts that were in place, we were able to conclude numerous new contracts, so I could say looking in the first half of the year, or even first eight months, that the market is more than stable," PAUKOVIC summarized the Croatian market's status after about half of year since the Coronavirus outbreak.
Gorazd CIBEJ, Managing Director, Slovenian Insurance Supervision Agency, provided the essential information on the Slovenian market's performance throughout the first half of 2020: "Slovenian insurance undertakings' total net profit decreased in 1Q2020, compared to the same period of 2019, which was no surprise considering the main driver of the Slovenian insurance companies' profitability is the net investment income, especially of the life insurance portfolios. In the second quarter of 2020 the total net profit of Slovenian insurance undertakings improved substantially, increasing as compared to the same period in the year 2019 by a little more than 50 percent. On the individual basis, 9 out of the 13 Slovenian insurance undertakings reported operating profit in the second quarter of 2020.
In business volume terms, the market gross written premium in 1H was 5 percent higher than the same period last year one, driven by the non-life insurance segment. One of the reasons for this positive trend was the earthquake in our neighboring country, in Zagreb, which somehow encouraged people to think about their insurance coverage. This was also, according to our analysis, the reason for the rise in profit. On the other hand, the same applies also for life insurance premium which was higher by 3 percent than in the same period last year."
As insurers' performance depends a lot on the general economic environment and, in particular, on the opportunities and limitations offered by the capital markets for the profitably investing, yesterday's XPRIMM TIME FOR BUSINESS show had as special guest two reputed seet management professionals: Blaz KMETEC, CFA, Executive Director for Finance, Zavarovalnica Triglav and Davor ILJAS, CFA, Member of the Management Board at Allianz Invest. They have both agreed that, on one hand the crisis' impact on the insurers' portfolio was significant, but also somehow limited, due to the rather conservative nature of the portfolios. Also, considering that low yields environment that was already challenging before the Covid crisis, will continue for the foreseeable future, insurers will need to diversify their asset portfolios, gradually increasing exposure to alternative asset classes.
To find out what the show's guest had to say on several other topics, watch XPRIMM TIME FOR BUSINESS edition "Re/insurance markets facing the Covid crisis: Croatia and Slovenia" on the XPRIMM TV YouTube Channel.
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