In 2016, BTA Baltic Insurance Company AAS (hereinafter – BTA), having acquired a new shareholder – Vienna Insurance Group AG (hereinafter - VIG), a leading insurer in Europe, has successfully pursued the development of its insurance product portfolio and increased its sales in the in the Baltic States. BTA has written a total of 132.5 million euros of gross insurance premiums in the Baltic States in 2016, which is by 15.4 % more than in 2015. Jānis Lucaus, BTA Chairman of the Board, admits that the acquisition of the shareholder and successfully chosen business strategy has allowed the company to considerably increase its sales volumes in markets of neighbouring countries, as well as to reinforce its positions in the corporate customers segment, where the volume of written insurance premiums has grown by 18 %.

Developing its services in the Baltic States, BTA has achieved a steep growth of its business volumes in Estonia and Lithuania. “Last year the growth of our company in Estonia and Lithuania considerably outperformed the overall growth in non-life insurance markets of these countries due to our focused development of cooperation channels and segmenting insurance products. The largest relative growth in gross written insurance premiums was achieved in Estonia, and namely 29 %. BTA’s sales in Estonia have grown nearly three times faster than the overall Estonian non-life insurance market and the achieved level of growth has been of the largest on the Estonian non-life insurance market. The largest growth in the volume of gross written insurance premiums was achieved in Lithuania – last year in Lithuania BTA has written by 13.2 million euros more gross insurance premiums than in 2015, thus recording a growth speed that is twice the overall Lithuanian non-life insurance market. The year on the Latvian market has passed with a positive development dynamics, and a slight growth of 1 % in gross written insurance premiums. Any faster growth in Latvia is impeded by the tight competition inherent to our market. At present, the prices in a number of insurance types have reached a level, where insurers need to have some very serious contemplation of their further business strategy and priorities. We have already made the first steps in selecting, in our opinion, a sustainable BTA development scenario by building a balanced insurance portfolio and pursuing a pricing policy matching the actual costs,” says J.Lucaus.

According to the unaudited financial results of BTA in the Baltic States by insurance types, the largest growth in gross insurance premiums written by BTA in 2016 in the Baltic States was reached in MTPL (+ 23 %), personal accidents (+ 20 %), health (+ 18 %), CASCO (+ 17 %) and property (+ 13 %) insurance.

Also, a previous positive tendency remained – the volume of gross written insurance premiums in voluntary insurance types keeps growing in all three Baltic States (+ 11.3 %). Moreover, the voluntary insurance becomes more popular not only with private individuals (+ 13.5 %), but companies as well (+ 10,3 %). More and more frequently companies complement their staff motivation social guarantee programme packages by including health or personal accident insurance policies, as well as expanding the list of services covered by these policies. Evidence to this is the considerable increase in the volume of gross insurance premiums written by BTA in the corporate customers segment in health insurance (+ 18 %), as well as in personal accidents insurance (+ 29 %).

With the volume of written insurance premiums growing, there also has been a rise by 9.8 % in the volume of gross premiums paid by BTA in 2016, reaching 77.5 million euros. BTA disbursed nearly 304 thousand euros in insurance indemnities on average each business day last year, or approximately 38 thousand euros each business hour.

A considerable growth in gross insurance indemnities paid (+ 109 %) last year was in general third party liability insurance, which is due to a number of large-scale indemnities in the corporate customers segment. The volume of gross insurance indemnities paid by BTA has also increased in personal accidents (+ 28 %), MTPL (+ 11 %) and CASCO (+ 9 %) insurance. The increase of in the volume of indemnities in vehicle insurance is largely due to the growing costs of car repair and spare parts.

Despite of the large amount of losses in the MTPL segment in Latvia and also Estonia, as well as the increase in insurance indemnities paid by BTA, the successfully implemented business strategy has allowed BTA to attain good results and a profit of 2.5 million euros in the Baltic States in 2016.

Assessing the development tendencies in the insurance industry in 2017, J.Lucaus points out that, despite of the fierce competition, there is a great development potential in the Baltic insurance market and growth is expected in a number of insurance types. "The opportunities made available by car dealer companies and leasing options have led to a significant increase in the number of new car registrations in all three Baltic countries last year as well as in January of this year, which at the same time contributes to the increase in CASCO segment. Increase can also be expected in home insurance segment this year, because the number of households that regularly insure their homes in the Baltic countries still remains relatively small. Stiff competition will continue this year in the insurance market, and especially in Latvia, which put yet more pressure on insurers to be able to act by yet increasingly flexible business strategy, offering customers a variety of tailored solutions, as well as to develop new insurance and customer service products. As part of its active customer service improvement endeavours, a customer self-service portal in Estonia was developed by last year BTA and launched at the beginning of this year, a platform where customers can easily and quickly purchase insurance products, as well as submit their insurance claims. A similar portal providing extra convenience to customers is going to be launched in Latvia this year, "says J.Lucaus.

About the company

BTA Baltic Insurance Company AAS (hereinafter – BTA) is a leading insurance company in the Baltic States, providing all types of non-life insurance services in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. BTA also is a largest insurance indemnity payer in the Baltic region – disbursed nearly 304 thousand euros in insurance indemnities on average each business day in 2016, or approximately 38 thousand euros each business hour.

The largest shareholder of BTA is Vienna Insurance Group AG, one of the leading insurers in Europe. The group with a solid brand operates more than 50 companies in 25 countries, 190 year experience in the insurance field and close cooperation with customers. VIG employs 23,000 employees and is a clear leader in its core markets. VIG is a group with the best rating of all companies in the ATX, the leading index of the Vienna Stock Exchange, with a secondary listing on the Prague Stock Exchange.

More information:
Agnese Grīnberga
Public Relations Manager
BTA Baltic Insurance Company AAS
e-mail agnese.grinberga@bta.lv
Phone: +371 67025661, mobile: +371 27828796