June 6 (SeeNews) - Austria's Vienna Insurance Group (VIG) said that premiums across its extended Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) market segment, which includes nine states in Southeast Europe, grew 16.5% to roughly 1.04 billion euro ($1.11 billion) in the first quarter of 2023 as a result of good business development.
Premiums across the whole group written according to the IFRS 4 accounting standard increased by 12% on the year to 3.87 billion euro, VIG said in a press release last week.
The insurance group's extended CEE segment includes Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Moldova, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia as well as the Baltic states, Slovakia, Ukraine and Hungary.
The premiums increase in the segment was partially due to performance in the three Baltic countries as well as the initial consolidation of the Hungarian business of Dutch insurance, pensions and asset management company Aegon.
On June 1, Aegon announced it has wrapped up its exit from the CEE region after closing the disposal to VIG of its businesses in Poland and Romania for 125 million euro.
VIG noted that it remains cautiously optimistic for the whole of 2023 and firmly targets a positive operating performance in the financial year. Inflation is seen to have a likely negative bearing on business development, with the fall in real-terms income despite adjustments for inflation potentially leading to lower demand for insurance coverage in certain cases.
"The current economic growth forecasts for our core market are encouraging. Despite the war in Ukraine, the economies in the CEE region are showing resilience. Although we are seeing weaker economic growth in this region, we expect stronger growth for 2023 as a whole to outstrip that in the eurozone," Elisabeth Stadler, CEO of Vienna Insurance Group, said.
($ = 0.9334 euro)
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