1995 Growth of Insurance Industry Driven by Strong Expansion of Life Insurance Business
The Austrian insurance market appears to have stayed rather closed also in the second year since the Single Market was established with the European Economic Area (EEA). While the scope of suppliers has become wider in geographical terms by new entrants from the U.K. and from Luxembourg joining the foreign insurance companies resident in Austria, only about 2 percent of premium revenues is currently leaking abroad under the free flow of services and investment, according to data provided by Eurostat and to estimates by the Association of Austrian Insurance Companies. Growth of the Austrian insurance industry in 1995, as in the previous year, was driven by the strong expansion of life insurance, with both revenues and expenditure in this category rising at double-digit rates. This development may be explained by private expectations concerning the fiscal consolidation package, although own estimates suggest that the impact of tax reforms on the flow of premium revenues was accompannied by higher yield on insurance policies and reinvestment of matured contracts. The health insurance sector suffered real losses of premium revenue, due to the number of risks declining and higher coverage limits. The price effects of a constitutional court ruling whereby the suppliers of health services are not allowed to charge private insurance companies for losses incurred on their general operations should make for a rebound of demand over the next years. In the property and accident insurance categories, higher car repair costs have been more than offset by a fall in the number of claims such that indemnity payments actually declined for the first time since 1988. Assets of insurance companies increased only moderately in 1995, with investment being shifted towards long-term loans. Due to a lengthening of average maturities, the yield differential vis-à-vis bonds widened to 1.7 percentage points.