Insurers of Bosnia & Herzegovina have reported GWP worth EUR 195.7 million at the end of 1H, 6.65% more y-o-y. Life insurance recorded an above average growth rate, of 10%, which rounded its share in the market portfolio to 20%.

Yet, the overall business volume remains very small, of only EUR 39.25 million. According to the insurance professionals, while life insurance is no longer a popular savings product, given the low interest rates environment, the local specialty market also lacks the opportunity to develop a line of Unit-Linked products because of the current investment regulations in BiH.

On the non-life side, the market growth came almost entirely from the motor insurance lines, which together account for about 59% of the total GWP or almost 74% of the non-life premiums. Property insurance, on the other hand, have recorded a 6% increase in GWP. Yet, the coverage degree of the properties in BiH remains very much behind the real need, especially considering the experience of the last years, when losses caused by extreme weather events were covered to just an insignificant extent.

Only in the first half of 2019, paid claims for the fire insurance line increased two and a half times as compared with 1H2018. According to the PreventionWeb knowledge sharing platform on disaster risk reduction, managed by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), the average annual loss in BiH for the floods risk is of USD 54.7 million, while the multi-risk value may reach USD 69.6 million. Such figures emphasize the huge NatCat protection gap.

Looking at the two administrative entities, FBiH and RS, there are obvious differences in size: FBiH insurers' contribution to the total GWP slightly exceeds 70%, a share that didn't change y-o-y. On the other hand, while in FBiH life insurance accounts for almost 25% of the total premiums written in the entity, in RS the segment's weight in the total premiums is of less than 10%.

Among the companies domiciled in FBiH, SARAJEVO, ADRIATIC and UNIQA are the Top 3 insurers, all of them composite insurers and operating both in FBiH and RS and cumulating a market share of about 39%. In the group of companies headquartered in RS, WIENER, DRINA Insurance and DUNAV are making the Top 3, accounting together for about 44% of the premiums written by the RS insurers.
Access xprimm.com and download the 1H2019 Bosnian insurance market statistics (in EUR and BAM).

• Bosnia 1H2019 Market portfolio
• Bosnia 1H2019 Market rankings (GWP/ Claims/ Market shares/ Growth rates)