CertAsig posts 21% rise in gross written premiums to EUR 12 mln in 2013

Non-life insurer CertAsig said its gross written premiums rose to EUR 12 million last year, a 21 percent year-on-year hike, despite the difficult local insurance market.

The insurer, which is majority-owned by private equity fund Royalton Capital Investors II, reported a EUR 400,000 (unaudited) profit last year. This year, CertAsig hopes to increase the level of gross written premiums to around EUR 15 to 16 million, by providing specialized insurance services. Its main clients come from the construction, transport and maritime industries.

“Our target is mainly the corporate segment, and in this area – from which we have developed a balanced portfolio of insurance products – focused on specialized insurance classes: bonds, property & engineering, liability and marine insurance. Also some new event companies have started requesting event insurance, so we will continue our focus on this segment,” James Grindley, CEO CertAsig, told BR.

CertAsig has excluded from its portfolio loss-making motor insurance classes, which account for 70 percent of the insurance market in Romania.

“Unfortunately in the current insurance market environment, it is virtually impossible to underwrite a technically profitable motor portfolio, especially when investment returns are too low to compensate for the claims,” said the CEO.

He reckons the non-life/non-motor market remains attractive to foreign players, but says few transactions involving insurers will take place this year, because a large share of them are owned by larger foreign groups.

Grindley says the market should “take its natural course” and grow by at least 5 percent this year.

Data from the Financial Supervision Authority (ASF) show the volume of gross written premiums in Romania rose by 0.1 percent to RON 6.1 billion (EUR 1.3 billion) in the first nine months of 2013 against the same period of last year.

The insurer currently has 53 employees and offices in Bucharest, Timisoara, and Cluj, as well as a liaison office in Istanbul, Turkey, and a dedicated contact in Sofia, Bulgaria.