Insurance premiums soaring in Latvia

  • 2004-02-05
  • Baltic News Service
RIGA - Latvian insurance companies last year subscribed gross premiums worth 122.6 million lats (182.7 million euros), or 22 percent more than in 2002, the Latvian Insurer Association announced last week.

The Latvian Insurer Association's vice president for life insurance, Ugis Vorons, said that results on the life insurance market last year were very good. Specific growth figures for individual types of insurance in 2003 were not available yet, he said, but it was likely that pension insurance would show the most rapid growth.
The association's vice president for non-life insurance, Janis Abasins, also regarded last year's results as positive. He said premiums growth was due to increasing mortgage lending and leasing and that almost all types of insurance showed growth last year, especially real estate insurance, car insurance and health insurance.
The market share of life insurers has increased a little to 6.2 percent last year from 5.7 percent in 2002. In terms of premiums subscribed, nonlife insurers took 93.8 percent of the Latvian insurance market in 2003 as compared with 94.3 percent in 2002.