June 9 (SeeNews) - The assets managed by Bulgarian insurance companies increased to 7.26 billion levs ($4.15 bilion/3.7 billion euro) at the end of March, up 16% year-on-year, the country's central bank said on Friday.
The assets of life insurance companies increased by 9.6% on the year to 1.9 billion levs as of end-March, while the assets managed by general insurance companies rose by 18.6% to 5.35 billion levs, the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) said on its website.
Compared to the end of December, the insurance companies' total assets were 9.7% higher at the end of March, with life insurers' assets up 4.1% and general insurers' assets 11.9% higher.
At the end of March, the assets of life insurance companies accounted for 26.3% of the total assets of Bulgarian insurers, down from 27.8% a year earlier.
The assets of general insurance companies made up 73.7% of all assets, up from 72.2% at end-March 2016.
The share of securities other than shares in the insurance companies' assets fell to 47.2% from 50.5% at end-March 2016, the share of deposits decreased to 10.9% from 11.7%, and the share of claims from insurance operations declined to 9.2% from 10.1%.
Assets invested in other EU member states jumped by 31.6% on the year to reach 3.5 billion levs at end-March. Their share increased to 48.5% of total assets, up from 42.8%.
(1 euro=1.95583 levs)