October 26 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's general insurance market rose by an annual 0.4% to 956.89 million levs ($735.56 million/489.23 million euro) in the eight months through August, official data indicated.
Bulgaria's general insurance market is dominated by mandatory car insurance and motor third-party liability insurance policies, which jointly accounted for 69.4% of total premiums in the first eight months of the year, the Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) said in a statement.
The combined premium income of the 17 life insurers operating in Bulgaria decreased by 17% on the year to 145.99 million levs through August.
Bulgarian voluntary health insurers reported gross premium income of 27.72 million levs in the first eight months of 2009, up 30.6% on the year.
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)