Reinsurer Swiss Re estimated its preliminary claims burden from Hurricane Ida at approximately USD 750 million. On an industry level, Swiss Re estimated total insured market losses to be in the range of USD 28-30 billion.

With a combined total of USD 535 billion (up from USD 518 billion in 2020), the top 100 insurers owned by banking or postal service groups accounted for 8.3% of gross direct premiums written and related inflows worldwide across all types of insurance (i.e. life / annuity, health and P&C / non-life) in 2020, according to Insuramore's global rankings.

On 5th October 2021, the XIIIth edition of the International Istanbul Insurance Conference took place in a virtual format, under the titles "Climate change & natural disasters - A new risk approach in insurance and reinsurance world", hosting an exquisite team of speakers and a large international audience.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) signed an agreement to acquire a minority stake in Euroins Insurance Group (EIG) by investing EUR 30 million through a capital increase, while Еurohold, the insurance group's parent company, is providing a further equity injection of up to EUR 12 million. 

Any legislative initiative to review the VAT Directive has to take account of the unique features of insurance, its products and business mode, Insurance Europe notes in its position paper on the EC's review of the Directive on value-added tax (VAT) released today.

According LKF statistics (the Estonian Traffic Insurance Fund), a record number of traffic accidents occurred this summer (from June to August): about 8,000 claim files with a total loss of EUR 15 million.

On October 1, SBERBANK Insurance launched sales of own e-MTPL policies, ASN reports. The company appeared in the list of MTPL insurers.

For the period from January to June 2021, GWP of the compulsory travel insurance, according to the National Bank of Kazakhstan, reached a record volume of KZT 2.2 billion (~EUR 4.36 million*), which is five times more y-o-y and 1.5 times more compared to the same period of 2019, Allinsurance.kz reports.

The draft law "On insurance activities" will be submitted to the House of Representatives in April 2022, Lyudmila NIZHEVICH, Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Budget and Finance of the Lower House, told BELTA.

Slovene re/insurance group SAVA RE announced in a statement the resignation of supervisory board member.

Consolidated net profit of the Slovenian insurance holding company Prva Group rose 68.9% y-o-y to EUR 4.2 million in the first six months of 2021, SeeNews reported.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development announced that the amount of subsidies to premiums for insurance of crops and livestock allocated in the state budget for 2021 has been increased, Gazeta Ubezpieczeniowa reports.

In the two quarters of this year, the largest type of insurance in Latvia in terms of sales volume was health insurance, which makes up 23% of the total GWP. The number of life insurance contracts has decreased, while property insurance has increased, the local press said.

From January to August GWP of Albanian insurers expanded by 19.28% y-o-y to ALL 12.7 billion (~EUR 103.3 million*), as official figures showed, SeeNews reports.

Allianz S.p.A., the Italian holding company of the Allianz Group, announced that it has successfully closed the transaction to acquire Aviva Italia S.p.A., the Italian property & casualty (P&C) insurance entity of the Aviva Group, from Aviva Italia Holding S.p.A.

Following its strategic succession planning discussions, the Supervisory Board of German insurer Allianz SE announced changes/decisions to its Board of Management.

Around two months after the flood disaster in the Ahr, Erft and other regions of Germany, the insurance industry has already paid about EUR 1.5 billion to insured persons, General Association of the German Insurance Industry (GDV) said.

Denis Kessler, Chairman of the French group SCOR, was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual Insurance Insider Honours awards ceremony in London on 28 September. This award recognizes the outstanding contribution he has made to the industry for more than thirty years.

The bankruptcy of CITY Insurance - the largest player on the Romanian market, with a 20% share of the total industry and 45% in the MTPL segment, continues to be the hot topic of the week.

Insurance market of Bosnia & Herzegovina ended the first half of 2021 by showing a positive dynamic, especially on the life insurance side. Yet, although recording a 12.3% y-o-y GWP growth, the life insurance segment remains very small, reaching a total GWP amount of EUR 42.8 million, still far from the market's potential. At the same time, indemnities paid for life insurance went up by 27% y-o-y, to EUR 21.7 million.