On May 17, 2023, the next edition of the annual award ceremony in the insurance sector and the pension insurance - "Insurer of the Year", "Pension Insurance Company of the Year", "Insurer broker of the Year" 2022 took place in Bulgaria, ABZ (Association of Bulgarian Insurers) reports. The best performing companies from the insurance and pension insurance sector in 2022 were honored.

A new composition and chairman of the ABZ (Association of Bulgarian Insurers) Board were elected at the Association's annual meeting on May 17, 2023, ABZ announced on its website.

The business of Montenegrin insurers increased by 13.83% y-o-y in the first quarter of 2023, reaching EUR 30.61 million, as preliminary official figures showed.

The Serbian insurance market ended 2022 with aggregate GWP worth RSD 134 billion (EUR 1.14 billion), up by 12.16% y-o-y, according to the NBS's (National Bank of Serbia) year-end figures.

The growth of the insurance sector in 1Q2023 reached 50% y-o-y, GWP increased to KGS 702.08 million (EUR 7.38 million).

Zurich's Property & Casualty insurance revenue in 1Q was up 7%, driven by strong growth in commercial insurance and further improvement in pricing. Capital position was estimated at 258% as of March 31, 2023.

From January to April 2023, the MTPL loss ratio in Armenia decreased to 62% vs 67% in January-April 2022, which is even lower than the pre-Covid 73% in January-April 2019, ArmInfo reports.

Cegeka, a European ICT service provider with headquarters in Belgium, has announced its expansion to Greece with the opening of a new office in Athens. This new location will serve as Cegeka's fourth country of their European Delivery Center after Romania, Moldova and the Czech Republic.

Insurance Europe's recently published paper, that examines the impact of the different positions taken on the Data Act proposal by the European co-legislators in the trialogue discussions, sets out the insurance industry's positions on amendments proposed in relation to compensation, data use, trade secrets and data-sharing between businesses and governments.

The key market drivers in 2022 were MTPL, Green Card and Motor Hull. Their total share exceeded 49% of the market portfolio. In 2022 MTIBU member insurance companies settled 110.6 thousand claims (-36.2% y-o-y) and paid about UAH 2.8 billion (-24.1%) to road accident victims, as was noted at the MTIBU General Meeting on 18^th of May 2023.

According to the National Bank of Tajikistan, for the first nine months of 2022, assets of insurance (reinsurance) organizations amounted to TJS 612.3 million (~EUR 63.84 million). The share of insurers' assets for the period was equal to 0.6% of GDP.

French insurer AXA informed it closed Q1 2023 with business worth EUR 31.8 billion, up from EUR 31.2 billion a year before, of which Property & Casualty - EUR 18.6 billion, Life & Health - EUR 12.8 billion, Asset Management - EUR 0.4 billion.

In Q1 2023, German reinsurer Munich Re generated a net result of EUR 1,271 million vs. EUR 1,480 million a year before.

German insurer Talanx Group announced in a statement it grew its insurance revenue and Group net income in the first three months of 2023.

Reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter, par of Marsh McLennan, announced the appointment of Anders Nises as CEO of the Nordics region.

Albanian insurers recorded GWP worth EUR 45.42 million in Q1 2023, up by 29% y-o-y. In the same period, paid claims rose by 18.3% y-o-y, to EUR 14.23 million. However, one should note that due to the Albanian currency appreciation vs. the precedent year, the growth rates in European currency are significantly higher than those calculated with the premiums and paid claims values denominated in Albanian Lek.

"While one of the truly challenging aspects is how to know your client, technology helps insurers a lot when it comes to assessing a driver's risk," says Boguslaw SKUZA, Managing Director, Global Business Development, uAvionics Technologies Ltd Poland, adding that to make thing work well on long term, "it is also very important for the apps you create to be well integrated with the fast-evolving mobile phones."

Croatian motor insurers are preparing to face a new Law on compulsory MTPL. Currently the draft Law is going to the process of public debate, which should be completed by June 3rd. After that the amended Law will be submitted to the Government, and then to Parliament and is expected to take effect already in the fall.

TUW PZUW, the largest mutual insurance company in Poland, part of the PZU financial group, launches "Szpital 360" - a new project that TUW PZUW intends to introduce in medical facilities from September, as a preventive program aimed at developing a medical risk management model in medical entities insured by the company.

The insurance sector of Armenia in the first quarter of 2023 grew by 17.24% to AMD 23.81 billion (EUR 48.94 million). At the same time, paid claims' growth slightly outpaced premiums and amounted to 18.70%, as shown by the data on the activities of insurance companies provided by ArmInfo.