In the first quarter of the year, health insurance was the branch with the highest share in the Turkish insurance market, according to Mr Ahmet Yasar, President of the Insurance Association of Turkiye (TSB), Middle East Insurance Review reports.

The health insurance branch generated TRY 88.1 billion (USD 1.9 billion) in premiums in 1Q2026, which is 33.60% more y-o-y. Its share in the market portfolio was 25.94% in 1Q2026. Real growth in health insurance was 2.09% in the first quarter of this year.

“Our population is aging. There is an increase in our need for healthcare, rising healthcare costs, issues related to elderly care, and our need for savings”, said Mr Ahmet Yasar. Pointing out that the Social Security Institution's (SGK) share in healthcare expenditures is over 80%, he noted that 10% of the population has both private health insurance and supplementary health insurance. “As private insurance companies, we can cover 2.8-3% of total healthcare expenditures. However, the healthcare expenses that our citizens pay for out of pocket are at the level of 15%", the President of the TSB emphasized.

According to Mr Ahmet Yasar, simply increasing the number of people with supplementary health insurance is not enough. "The capacity of our private hospitals also needs to be increased, or our university hospitals need to be included in the supplementary health insurance process", he added.