The Romanian insurance market is characterized by a medium to high degree of concentration. In 9M2021, approximately 88% of the total volume of GWP was carried out by 10 companies, according to the ASF - Financial Supervisory Authority report. See the rankings of the players as calculated by XPRIMM and what the changes were compared to the same period last year.

Insurers accumulated, in the first 9 months of 2021, gross written premiums (GWP) of about EUR 1.97 billion (RON 9.8 billion), a volume by about 15% higher compared to the same period last year:

• GWP for non-life insurance (GI) amount to about EUR 1.57 billion (RON 7.8 billion), up by 13% compared to the same period last year;
• GWP for life insurance (LI) are about EUR 406.4 million (RON 2 billion), a significant increase of more than 22% compared to the first 9 months of 2020.

During September 2021, the ASF withdrew the operating license of CITY Insurance SA, a company that practiced a non-life insurance activity, with the most significant part of its portfolio focused on the marketing of MTPL policies. Given the significant market share that the company held and the fact that CITY Insurance operated until September 2021, the indicators in this report also include data related to CITY Insurance, except for the information in the chapter on statistical data under the Solvency II regime.

TOP Insurers

Being active in the market until mid-September, CITY Insurance continues to rank first in the market (general insurance + life insurance), with a market share of 18.9% after the first 9 months of 2021 and GEP of EUR 374 million, according to calculations made by XPRIMM Publications, based on data submitted by ASF. Compared to the same period last year, ALLIANZ-TIRIAC Asigurari moved up one position to second place (12.1% share and GWP of EUR 239 million), while EUROINS Romania dropped to third place (12.0% - EUR 237 million).

The next positions in the ranking were maintained by OMNIASIG VIG (11.5%), GROUPAMA Asigurari (9.4%), NN Asigurari de Viata (7.0%), ASIROM VIG (5.6%), GENERALI Romania (5.2%).

BCR Asigurari de Viata (3.5%) moved up one position to 9th place, while BRD Asigurari de Viata (3.1%) moved to the last place in the Top 10, while UNIQA Asigurari dropped out of the ranking.

In the non-life insurance segment, CITY Insurance is still the leader (market share of 23.8%), followed, as a year ago, by EUROINS Romania (15.1%), OMNIASIG VIG (14.4%), ALLIANZ-TIRIAC Asigurari (12.8%) and GROUPAMA Asigurari (11.2%).

The ranking is completed by ASIROM VIG, GENERALI Romania, UNIQA Asigurari, PAID Romania and GRAWE Romania.

In the first 9 months of 2021, three business lines accounted together for about 86% of total non-life GWP: MTPL insurance (47% of non-life GWP; 18% growth rate), Motor Hull (26%; 14% up y-o-y) and the fire and natural disasters (13%, up by 8% y-o-y).

In the life insurance segment, the top four places remained unchanged compared to Q3 2020: NN Asigurari de Viata (34.1% market share), BCR Asigurari de Viata VIG (17.2%), BRD Asigurari de Viata (14.9%), ALLIANZ-TIRIAC Asigurari (9.4%).

GENERALI Romania climbed to 5th place, while SIGNAL IDUNA fell to 6th place. UNIQA Asigurari de Viata and ASIROM VIG also swapped places on positions 7 and 8, while the last two places in the ranking remained unchanged: GROUPAMA Asigurari and GRAWE Romania.

Of the total life insurance GWP, the largest shares are held by classes C1 - Life insurance, annuities and supplementary life insurance -, and C3 - Life insurance and annuities, related to investment funds -, together accounting for about 92.6% of total gross written premiums for life insurance business.

As of September 30, 2021, 26 insurance companies, authorized and regulated by the ASF, were active on the insurance market, of which 13 practiced only general insurance ("GI"), 7 practiced only life insurance ("LI") and 6 practiced composite activity.

English version by Cristian Suca