Consumer protection is one of HANFA's top priorities, especially taking into account the growth in unit-linked life insurance.

ACRA's methodology fundamentally differs from the ones used by international peers due to the very fact that it is based on the national scale. This is what distinguishes our approach as a more detailed one allowing for fine tuning, with the local market peculiarities being accounted for. The approaches used by international agencies are intended to rate local companies on the international scale and then map international credit ratings to national scale equivalents.

Establishing a robust anti-fraud culture and awareness in the company may prove crucial to improving financial indicators, will argue Roland WORNER, Global Head of Anti-Fraud , Zurich Insurance Company speaking at the Insurance Fraud Forum, to be held in Munich, Germany, on October 20-21. He shared some of his opinions on the topic in the following interview.

No question, this is the hardest time for most of the Russian insurers since they exist. The growth model does not work anymore in an environment, where everybody - business, private consumers, state - cut back insurance expenditure. On the other hand, shareholders run out of patience to support low margin insurance assets, and the regulator urges for more transparency and improvement of the capital base. However, we believe that this is also the time when insurers usually adapt and streamline processes, decrease costs, but at the same time embrace new technologies and develop new products. Our job at Swiss Re is it to exchange with our partners on new ideas, make them see what is working in Australia, France, the U.S., start-ups successful in Japan and Germany.

The average expenses on insurance products in Poland are 5 times lower than of the average European Union resident. In this sense one can say that the Polish market is still developing and highly dependent on the welfare of the society.

As the overall insurance penetration is not yet at the desired level, the motor lines are still the market drivers in Turkey. "As a country, as an industry, we have to increase the insurance penetration rate. The motor line has already grown, so our focus now is on other lines of business. Health is one of them. We believe in complementary health products because right now just 2 million people benefit from private health policies and we are 80 million in total."

How will VIENNA Insurance Group look in 2026? Which is the group's strategy in the CEE region? What are the new management's plans? All these questions are answered by Elisabeth STADLER, CEO & Chairwoman of the Managing Board, VIENNA Insurance Group in an exclusive interview for XPRIMM Publications.

Estimates suggest the cyber market alone could triple in size over the next five years. Fresh thinking also needs to be applied to difficult questions surrounding new technologies such as driverless cars, cloud computing, 3D printing, the internet of things, nanotechnology, "sharing economies", drone proliferation and a host of other issues which will require risk-transfer mechanisms.

There are lots of rating agencies in the world; there are good agencies in Japan, in Europe and in other countries. But four rating agencies - Standard & Poor's, Fitch Rating's, Moody's and AM Best - are familiar to everybody. To us, a rating from such an agency is a "pass" into the world of international insurance and reinsurance, which allows us to work in all countries from Kazakhstan. These agencies employ highly skilled professionals who understand the situation both in the world economy and in the economy of Kazakhstan.

Last year there were a positive dynamics of development of BELARUS Re. Thus, in 2015 the total volume of reinsurance premiums reached BYR 488.0 billion, up by 44.6% in the current prices compared to 2014. There has been a significant growth and financial performance. Thus, the net profit of BELARUS Re has grown by 43.2% over the year 2015 and insurance reserves were increased by one-third.

The main challenges of aviation insurers are linked with the state of aviation industry in Russia, which are founded into a structural crisis, characterized by a decline in traffic, large losses, changes in structure of traffic and the structure of cost. During 2015 the crisis grew and the passenger traffic declined. Moreover, the loss of profitable international destinations led to an increasing share of unprofitable domestic traffic. According to the Federal Air Transport Agency, the total financial losses of the airlines increased by 70% in 2015.

Increased supervision and activities of the entity agencies for insurance supervision on the adequate application of the premium system in Bosnia and Herzegovina has led to an increase in total premium of compulsory motor third-party liability insurance of 8.29% and an increase in the share of this type of insurance in total premium in non-life insurance of 3.41%.

The Albanian FSA in cooperation with the World Bank has been working on the draft bill on catastrophe insurance. The purpose of this bill is to regulate the compulsory catastrophe insurance. Compulsory catastrophe insurance will cover the damage, caused by either earthquakes or floods and it will not extend to all types of buildings.

For the time being, the Russian market capacity for spacecraft insurance is about USD 20-25 million. The main capacity for such risks is offered by the first 5 largest insurance companies on the Russian market, including SOGAZ, INGOSSTRAKH and VTB Insurance. It is important to note that the market's total capacity strongly depends on their un/willingness to re/insurance space risks.

I would say, particularly for the CEE region, where there is a harsh competition and pressure on prices, that introducing telematics may introduce a variable which allows insurers to no longer compete only in terms of price. At the moment, every proposition is more or less the same, but introducing a variable you shift the competition from a price one to value one, introducing a unique selling proposition, also helping the market to make a step forward.

My experience over the years has led me to come to the firm conviction that most if not all of the significant consumer type issues that have arisen in various markets over the last decade were not as a result of inadequate regulation but the ineffective implementation of existing legislation. So my advice is use the powers that exist as they are in my opinion fit for purpose and stop adding to the sum of existing regulations which as they expand are becoming more and more remote and an ever increasing cost which is being borne by consumers and by the economy at large.

While the exposure to natural or man-made catastrophes in CEE is varied, all countries can benefit from receiving industry-leading cat planning and response data and best practices from PCS benchmarking reports. In addition, PCS would foster education and information sharing by bringing speakers from the global market to the CEE through close work with XPRIMM. PCS is also part of a broader company called VERISK Analytics, and there are numerous VERISK solutions that could have great benefit to CEE insurance markets.

Young customers, the GenX and Millennials generations are feeling pretty comfortable with insurers using the data from IoT devices and also agree to a large extent that if their insurer would use such data, most probably their loyalty to their insurance provider would improve. In fact, it is for these generations that insurers need to adapt their systems and become able to interact on all channels with their current and potential customers. Price alone will no longer be the main feature considered when choosing an insurance product and provider.

As this is the first year of Solvency II implemented in practice, we are focused on supervising insurance companies' risk assessment and risk management and reporting.

In reinsurance, the problem will be the decreasing of the investors' interest for this segment due to high competition and the reduction of margins in this business, or due to the changes of stock value of insurers that also lead to an outflow of capital from the insurance segment. But, as I see this will not be associated with any natural disaster, instead will be a stock factor, or a decrease of investor interest for this segment.