Asirom loses general insurance crown to Allianz-tiriac

Asirom lost the number one position on the general insurance market to Allianz-tiriac last year.
Asirom on Tuesday announced general insurance-related revenues (premiums grossed) worth some 2,700bn ROL for 2002, while Allianz-tiriac grossed 2,801bn ROL in premiums last year.
Asirom, a spin-off of the former State Insurance Administration (ADAS), used to be the number one insurer on the market in terms of premiums until last year, but kept losing market share every year, from nearly 50% in 1995 to 24.2% in 2002.
The general insurance market is estimated to have totalled $345 million last year. Asirom’s data (even though only preliminary like those of Allianz-tiriac, too, for the moment) show gross premium receipts worth $81.7 million compared with Allianz-tiriac’s $84.7 million.
Asirom’s share of the general insurance market therefore fell to 23.6% last year, compared with Allianz-tiriac’s 24.5%. The third-leading player on the market in terms of premiums grossed is Omniasig (14.4%).
The competition between Allianz-tiriac and Omniasig has been very fierce over the last four or five years, with Omniasig coming out second at some point (in 2000). The strength of the German shareholder, Allianz, one of the leading insurers in Europe, has finally prevailed, so that the company has nearly tripled general insurance-related gross receipts over the last three years, from 33.8 million euro in 2000 to 92.2 million euros in 2002. Asirom’s general insurance-related revenues went up 41% (if calculated in ROL) since the previous year.
The company also announced more than 900bn ROL in gross premiums collected from life insurance contracts in 2002, up 150% from 2001 if calculated in ROL. Still, if taking the market share into account, Asirom had lost the crown of the segment to the Dutch at ING Nederlanden ever since 1999.