Bulgaria's Jan-Aug General Insurance Market Grows 22.4% Y/Y

Bulgaria's general insurance market is dominated by car insurance policies, which generated 69.3% of total premiums in the eight months through August, the Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) said in a statement.

The combined premium income of Bulgaria's 17 life insurers increased by 23.8% on the year to 171 million levs through August. Life insurance policies generated 73% of the segment's total premium income.

The life insurance market is still underdeveloped in ex-communist Bulgaria, where the average monthly salary stood at some 480 levs in 2007.

The insurers' premiums from voluntary health insurance policies rose by 10.1% on the year to 21.2 million levs in the first eight months of 2008.

FSC provided no data for the insurers' combined technical profit for the eight-month period. The technical profit or loss of insurance companies is the financial result of their core activity.

The insurance market in Bulgaria has been growing steadily in recent years, mainly due to strong income from mandatory insurance policies such as third party liability for motor vehicles. However, the premium income per capita is still half the average of central and eastern Europe.

(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)