Total European insurance premiums increase 6.2% to €1,311bn

Written by Adam Cadle

31/01/2020

Total insurance premiums in Europe increased 6.2% in 2018, to €1,311bn, due to relatively strong growth in all business lines, according to Insurance Europe.

In the life sector premiums grew by +6.7% to €764bn, health +4.8% to €140bn and P&C +5.7% to €407bn. Total premiums in Europe rose for the six years to 2018 at an average rate of 3.8% each year.

The robust growth in 2018 was also due to positive results in most European markets. The three largest markets — the UK, France and Germany — together accounted for 58.2% of all premiums in Europe, or 1.1% more than the year before. All three markets recorded solid increases in premiums: 15.9% in the UK, 3.7% in France and 2.2% in Germany.

The Nordic and central and eastern European markets also contributed to the strong result, with growth of 5.2% and 3% respectively for the two blocks. After two years of decline in premiums, Italy, Europe’s fourth largest market, registered premium growth of 3.2%. Only two markets recorded a decline in premiums in 2018: Poland (-0.8%) and Liechtenstein (-14.5%)

Globally, premiums continued to expand in 2018, growing 4.8% to $5,193bn, after a 5.6% increase in 2017. Growth in the Asia-Pacific region, the world’s largest insurance market in terms of written premiums, slowed to 4.2% in 2018 from 6.2% in 2017, while North America increased 5.1% after rising 3.9% in 2017. Premium growth in Latin America and the Caribbean dipped to 3.3% in 2018 after strong growth of 9.8% the year before, while growth in the Middle East and Africa slowed to 2.2% from 6.7% in 2017.

Total claims and benefits paid to customers by European insurers increased 3.1% to €1,069bn in 2018, after growth of 8.8% in 2017. The total paid in claims and benefits in 2018 was equivalent to €1,769 per capita or €2.9bn per day. The five largest European markets (the UK, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands) accounted for 75.4% of all claims and benefits paid in 2018, up 0.1% on 2017.

In 2018, the average amount per capita spent on insurance in Europe grew €121 or 5.9% to €2,169, of which €1,264 was spent on life insurance, €232 on health and €674 on P&C insurance. Average insurance penetration in Europe amounted to 7.45% in 2018, an increase of 0.21pp compared with 2017.

Life insurance penetration, which increased 0.14pp to 4.35%, contributed greatly to the rise in penetration. Health and P&C penetration increased by 0.01 and 0.05 to 0.8% and 2.32% respectively.

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