In the first half-year the insurance market grew by almost one tenth — insurers registered in Lithuania and local branches of insurance companies from other European Union member states written LTL 940.1 million (or EUR 242 million) in premiums - 9.9% more than in the same period last year.

The following report was released by the Bank of Lithuania.

"Having assessed the country's economic indicators for the first half-year and the results of the insurance market, it is expected that by the end of the year the insurance market will reach a larger than projected growth volume," says Mindaugas SALCIUS, Deputy Director of the Prudential Supervision Department of the Supervision Service of the Bank of Lithuania.

According to the bank official, it is possible that this year the insurance market will grow not by 5-6%, as projected, but by 6-9%. According to the adjusted forecast, the growth of the life assurance market will reach 5-7% (the earlier forecast was 3%), while the non-life insurance market will be at 7-9% (projected 7%).

In the first half-year, compared with the same period of last year, the life insurance market grew by 9.8% (up to LTL 279.7 million), while non-life insurance - 9.9% (up to LTL 660.4 million) of signed contributions.

The non-life insurance market by number of concluded agreements within the first half-year grew by 2.5% (to 2.6 million units) and already exceeds the pre-crisis level. The number of concluded agreements in the largest insurance group - driver civil liability insurance - grew by 3.9% and amounted to 1,363.8 thousand units.

This year, the number of claims has increased. Some of them reached record levels. For example, within a half-year LTL 193.9 million in insurance claims was paid out - 24.9% more than last year in the same period. This record sum was due to the large number of insurance agreements that expired at the end of 2012.

In particular January of this year was exceptional, when the largest amount of premiums was paid out - LTL 62.1 million. In later months the volume of premiums decreased, while in June only an LTL 18.9 million sum was paid out. The sum of non-life insurance benefits this year grew by 11.9% - to LTL 385 million.

Access www.xprimm.com and download the 1H2013 Lithuanian insurance market statistics.

Market portfolio (in EUR and LTL):

• Gross written premiums
• Paid claims
• Growth rates
  

Market rankings (GWP/Claims/Market shares/Growth rates - in EUR and LTL):

• Life insurance ranking
• Non-life insurance ranking