December 18 (SeeNews) - The premium income of the 20 general insurers operating in Bulgaria fell by 0.8% on the year to 1.16 billion levs ($0.85 million/0.59 million euro) in the first 10 months of 2009, the country's financial regulator said on Friday.
Bulgaria's general insurance market is dominated by insurance policies for motor vehicles, which generated 70.1% of premium income through October, the Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) said in a statement.
The combined premium income of Bulgaria's 17 life insurers decreased by 19.4% on the year to 177.3 million levs through October. Life insurance policies generated 74,3% of the segment's premium income or 131.8 million levs.
Bulgarian voluntary health insurers reported gross premium income of 32.9 million levs in the first 10 months of 2009, up 30.2% 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)