Serbia was one of few CEE insurance markets where the 2008 economic crisis was tackled with little sacrifice to market growth. The industry grew to EUR 195 million (+33%) from 2008 to 2017.

Life insurance has shown y-o-y increases, to EUR 120 million in premiums (+167%), while non-life segments maintain slower growth, adding EUR 75 million to the market (+14%).



In terms of Gross Written Premiums (GWP), the evolution can be divided into three segments, bounded by two important inflection years: 2010 and 2014. Between 2008-2010, the insurance market shrank in GWP terms, decreasing by 9.31% (- EUR 55 million), mainly due to the non-life evolution which faced a decrease of EUR 71 mil. The following stage, from 2010-2014, was the recovery interval of the market, with small fluctuations and an overall upward tendency. The third and final stage, between 2014-2017, represents the largest growth in GWP from this period, when all main insurance segments showed y-o-y increases. By 2016 both life and non-life sectors exceeded 2008 levels.

Paid claims (PC) followed a similar pattern to GWP, but at a smaller scale and with bigger fluctuations. During 2008-2017, paid claims for the overall market increased by 31.3% (+ EUR 74 mil). The non-life sector increased in PC, by 5.8% (+ EUR 12 million), the only exception being the motor hull line, where paid claims' level dropped by 13.3% (-EUR 7 million). PC for life insurance increased by 415.6% (+ EUR 62 million), giving it the biggest weight overall.

Throughout the decade, life insurance has slowly increased its share in the market portfolio, from 12.2% in 2008, to a peak point of 25.9% in 2016. In the final year (2017) life insurance slowed down, its weight going down to 24.4%.

Non-life structure consists mainly of MTPL insurance. In the non-life sector, MTPL kept a solid share of 35.9% (minimum was in 2008) to 47.1% (maximum, in year 2015). MTPL in the overall market represents between 31.5 - 35.8% of total GWP (it had the lowest share in 2008, and the highest in 2015) and 31.7 - 39.8%. Other important non-life classes are property insurance (23.6 - 28.1%) and motor hull insurance (10.1 - 17.4%). Those two classes were squeezed out by the ever growing MTPL line.

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