October 14 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria-based life insurance companies increased their gross written premiums by an annual 17.6% to 346.7 million levs ($195.4 million/177.3 million euro) in the first eight 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 77.3 million levs in the January-August period of 2019 from 37.6 million levs in the comparable period of 2018, financial regulator data, published on Friday, showed.
The four biggest life insurers had a combined market share of 86.9% of the total market.
Bulstrad Life Vienna Insurance Group was the biggest player on the life insurance market with gross premiums of 108.4 million levs in the first eight months of the year, equal to a market share of 31.3%.
DZI Life Insurance and Allianz Bulgaria Life followed with market shares of 22.3% and 18.2%, respectively.
The other company with a market share of over 10% was UNIQA Life, which recorded a market share of 15.1%.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)