The long Christmas and New Year holidays in Latvia have passed relatively quiet – the average number of accidents per day has shrunk by half, compared to the pre-holiday period. The number of claims was lowest right on the Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve and the first of the New Year, an evidence that people have taken a quiet approach to these holidays this year, suggest the data of BTA Baltic Insurance Company AAS (BTA).

Large part of population have really stayed at home during the festive period rather than going out and visiting, which can be concluded from the statistics of road traffic accidents. CASCO insurance claims for getting into an accident within the period from December 24 to January 2 was twice as low as during the period from December 14 to 23, while the amount of MTPL claims shrunk nearly triple.

The calm festivities were also confirmed by a drop by 42% in claims in real estate insurance against fire and natural disasters. When the usual incidents around the turn of the year are fire breaking out due to careless handling of fireworks, sparklers or tipping over candles in a room, then typical cases this year were falls by slipping at home or getting injured while chopping off branches from the Christmas Tree.

“Data is eloquent that the festive days this year have passed extraordinarily quiet and with a very low number of incidents. For instance, on the first day of the new year, we received 5-6 times fewer claims than on an ordinary working day. Also on the days in between the holidays, people have generally managed to avoid accidents, which suggests that the major part of public have taken the heed and spent holidays without grand celebration,” concludes BTA Insurance Claims Handling Department Director Kārlis Liepiņš.

The curfew and people staying at home has considerably made life tougher for thieves. During the holiday weeks, the number of burglaries and cases of damage to real estate has dropped nearly triple. Cases of stealing from cars as well were relatively few. Although, a Tesla owner got bad luck, whose car turned out missing both wing mirrors while at the docking station on the New Year’s night during curfew. Another car owner fell victim to an enraged offender, who had smashed a tail light of a Land Rover with an axe and then taken off.

About BTA

BTA Baltic Insurance Company is one of the leading insurance companies in the Baltics, offering the broadest range of non-life insurance services in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. BTA employs more than 1,000 employees in the Baltics. The largest shareholder of BTA is Vienna Insurance Group AG with close to 200 years of experience in the insurance business. With about 50 companies in 30 countries and more than 25,000 employees, Vienna Insurance Group is a clear market leader in its Central and Eastern European markets, and takes care of more than 22 million customers. Vienna Insurance Group is the best-rated company of ATX, the leading index of Vienna Stock Exchange (since 1994) with a rating of A+ with stable outlook from Standard & Poor’s; its share is also listed on the Prague Stock Exchange. Vienna Insurance Group works in close partnership with Erste Group – the largest retail bank in CEE.

Additional information:

Elīna Rasmane

Marketing and Public Relations Department Director

BTA Baltic Insurance Company AAS

e-mail elina.rasmane@bta.lv