Premiums written by Austrian insurance undertakings for direct business amounted to about €3.83 billion in Q4 2011. The total premium volume consequently grew slightly by 0.05% compared with the same quarter of 2010. Broken down according to individual insurance sector, a decrease in premium volume of 6.40% was seen for the life assurance sector compared with the same period of the previous year. Increases were recorded, in contrast, for the non-life\/accident (+6.81%) and health (+3.70%) sectors. The news was disclosed in the Report on Q4 performance of the Austrian insurance sector, published today by the Financial Market Authority FMA.<\/p>
In the life assurance sector (including unit-linked and index-linked life assurance), a total of €1.74 billion in premium revenues was collected during Q4, which represents €163 million more than in Q3 but €119 million less than in the same quarter of the previous year. In total during 2011, a premium volume decrease of 7.2% (or €539 million) was recorded for this sector compared with 2010. This change is largely accounted for by unit-linked and index-linked life assurance (-21.1% in comparison with 2010). The volume of premiums collected for non-life and accident insurance was €1.66 billion during Q4, representing a decrease of €112 million compared with the previous quarter but an increase of €106 million when compared with Q4 of 2010. In this sector, the premium volume increased on the whole in 2011 compared with the previous year, by 4.81% or €364 million. The premium volume recorded for the health sector during Q4 of 2011 amounted to €423 million, an increase of €3 million over Q3 and of €15 million over Q4 of 2010. In a year-on-year comparison, the premium volume for health insurance was seen to grow by €58 million.<\/p>
Premiums written outside Austria amounted to a total of €8.63 billion in 2011, compared with €8.16 billion in 2010. Of this total, €5.44 billion was accounted for by the balance sheet group of non-life and accident insurance and health insurance (€5.24 billion in 2010), while €3.19 billion was attributable to life assurance (2010: 2.92 billion).<\/p>
When the asset structure is viewed in detail, debt securities are seen to account for more than half of the entire portfolio. Roughly 20% of assets were in the form of investment funds and 12% in shares or securities equivalent to shares, with the remainder accounted for by real estate, loans and prepayments on policies, cash at bank and in hand, and hedge funds.<\/p>
The technical account balance totalled approximately €295 million in 2011, which roughly equates to a 20% decrease in comparison with the previous year. A smaller amount of capital income was transferred to the technical account from the life assurance balance sheet group, so that the result from ordinary activities increased by €62 million to €1.16 billion. The financial result dropped to €2.96 billion, decreasing by 7.5% compared with 2010.<\/p>