The Sava Insurance Group achieved strong organic growth in all its operating segments and markets in 2023. Its business volume increased to EUR 910.1 million, up 14.4% on the previous year and 13.8% ahead of plan, the Groups announced in a press release.

The growth was mainly driven by gross non-life premiums, which increased by 19.5% in the domestic market and by 21.7% in international markets. The life insurance business also grew, by 7.5% domestically and 13.6% abroad. In reinsurance, the Group continued to improve the composition of its portfolio, achieving a 19.4% increase in gross premiums of non-proportional contracts.

The Group’s net profit of EUR 64.7 million and return on equity of 10.8% were above plan, despite the significant impact of the summer storms and floods, which materially affected the Group’s largest subsidiary, Zavarovalnica Sava, because the Group’s other operating segments performed better than planned. A significant contributor to the outperformance of the plan was Sava Re’s performance in the international reinsurance markets. The hard reinsurance market trends in recent years, the restructuring of the reinsurance portfolio to improve profitability and the absence of major losses also contributed to the strong above-target result. In addition, investment performance supported the plan’s outperformance. Due to rising interest rates, the Group’s investment return was 2.1%, 0.6 percentage points higher than planned. The Group’s companies that manage financial assets also closed 2023 well ahead of target. This performance was driven by both capital market movements and increased inflows into the funds. All these factors mitigated the severe negative impact of the storm and flood losses. Thus, the Group’s capital strength remained at a high level in 2023 as the solvency ratio, estimated at between 182% and 188%, remained at the previous year’s level and within the optimal capitalization range.

The Group has also been successful in advancing its core strategic priorities. An ongoing commitment to customer centricity and business process optimization is accelerating and simplifying business processes, resulting in improvements in service at all points of the customer journey. Moreover, sustainability has become more firmly embedded in the operations of the Group companies. A culture of sustainability is also being systematically built among employees, with the Group aiming to set an example for the wider community.

A detailed presentation of Sava Re’s unaudited results is available here.