October 2 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria-based life insurance companies increased their gross written premiums by an annual 18.9% to 310 million levs ($172.9 million/158.5 million euro) in the first seven months of 2019, according to data from the Financial Supervision Commission.
The rise was mostly driven by sickness insurance premiums, which more than doubled to 71.4 million levs in the January-July period of 2019 from 31 million levs in the comparable period of 2018, financial regulator data, published on Tuesday, showed.
The four biggest life insurers had a combined market share of 87.3% of the total market.
Bulstrad Life Vienna Insurance Group was the biggest player on the life insurance market with gross premiums of 98.9 million levs in the first seven months of the year, equal to a market share of 31.9%. The company was also the best performer, increasing its premiums by 60.7% on a year-on-year basis.
DZI Life Insurance and Allianz Bulgaria Life followed with market shares of 22.1% and 18.0%, respectively.
The other company with a market share of over 10% was UNIQA Life, which recorded a market share of 15.3%.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)