Austria’s insurance sector enjoyed a varied start to the 2016 financial year. While the premium volume fell during Q1 2016 (compared with the Q1 2015) by – 3.77 % to € 5.17 billion, this was in particular attributable to a massive fall in one-off premiums in the life assurance sector (- € 248 million or – 41.91%). In contrast, premiums in the health insurance sector rose by 4.45% to € 524 million, and the non-life/accident insurance sector, which accounts for more than half of the total premium volume, increased by 1.15% to € 2.95 billion. In the life assurance as a whole, the premium volume fell by -13.23% to € 1.7 billion. The total carrying amount of all assets nevertheless increased by 0.8% to € 108.8 billion. The result from ordinary activities improved by € 6.6 million (+1.6%) to € 412.7 million, and while the financial result decreased by -3.58%, the technical account balance by contrast improved by 49.35 %. These findings have emerged from the Report on the Austrian Insurance Sector for the first quarter of 2016, which was published today by the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA).
Despite the challenges presented by the continuing low interest environment, Austrian insurance undertakings remain, as previously also the case, in a very stable position. Hidden net reserves (the balance of net reserves and net losses) at the end of Q1 2016 have risen by 7.03% to € 23.4 billion in comparison with the preceding quarter. The ratio of reserves to investments therefore stands at 26.08%. The new solvency requirements, which have been included in the current FMA Quarterly Report for the first time following the entry into force on 01.01.2016 of the new Insurance Supervision Act (VAG 2016 – keyword: Solvency II), which now takes into consideration the individual risk profile of every undertaking, also provide a satisfactory report for the sector. More than half of the undertakings possess more than 200% of the legally required solvency capital requirement (SCR). The average value (median) of all insurance undertakings stands at 220.8%. And half of the insurance undertakings fulfil the Minimum Capital Requirement (MCR) by around 500 to 900%.
The full Quarterly Report can be found (in German) on the FMA Website at https://www.fma.gv.at/versicherungen/offenlegung/quartalsberichte/
Journalists may address further enquiries to:
Klaus Grubelnik (FMA Media Spokesperson)
+43/(0)1/24959-6006
+43/(0)676/882 49 516