Astra-Uniqa insures Blue Air airline

Astra-Uniqa signed an insurance contract with Blue Air low-cost airline, according to the general manager of the company, Radu Mustatea.
He did not specify the value of the policy, but market sources estimate the company cashed in 1 million dollars (0.8 million euros) from this contract.
Astra-Uniqa’s current aviation insurance portfolio is worth $3 million (2.3 million euros), including, beside Blue Air, contracts with Romavia, Romaero and Baneasa Airport.
As a matter of fact, aviation insurance was one of the factors that drove the company’s turnover up during the first half of this year. Whereas Astra-Uniqa’s turnover was flat in 2005, the company’s gross underwritten premiums doubled in the first half of this year, compared with the corresponding period of last year, getting close to 52 million euros.
“The company last year experienced a decline triggered by a process of portfolio consolidation and cleaning. We stopped working with some brokers that brought a high volume of receipts but also high costs related to auto liability insurance (RCA), and dropped some lines of business with a number of customers, particularly on the car insurance segment,” states Mustatea.
Bancassurance partnerships sealed with Raiffeisen Bank, Banca Italo-Romena or Finansbank in turn boosted the company’s turnover. At the same time, Astra-Uniqa started selling insurance policies through several leasing companies, such as Raiffeisen Leasing, Porsche Leasing or Alpha Leasing.
Raiffeisen is part of Uniqa group, which owns 27 percent of Astra, with the rest of stock belonging to Nova Trade company, of businessman Dan Adamescu.
“It was agreed that Uniqa should increase its interest in Astra by 2008 and hold a majority stake,” states Mustatea.
He says the Austrians did not get directly involved in the management of Astra, but there is a periodical exchange of information.
The company targets turnover worth 86 million euros for this year, while income should reach more than 0.3 million euros, compared with 6.2 million-euro losses in 2005. Radu Mustatea plans to bring some new employees to the company’s life insurance unit this year, to sustain its development. Mustatea was appointed general manager of Astra in late June, after the departure of Gugliemo Frinzi.
“We are now developing a new life insurance product and are looking for alternative distribution channels. At the same time, we want to bring some new key employees to strengthen the team,” maintains Mustatea.
Whereas general insurance brought Astra-Uniqa gross underwritten premiums worth above 51.6 million euros in the first half, the company derived only 0.32 million euros from life insurance.