ING Asigurari sees better year: 5% higher turnover

ING Asigurari, the biggest company on the life insurance market, expects its turnover to pick up after the 2009 decline and has budgeted a 5% increase in gross underwritten premiums for this year, to 553.5m RON (around 132m euros calculated an exchange rate of 4.2 RON/EUR). Last year, the company saw its turnover slip by 5% amid the falling new sales and rising number of cancelled policies. The entire life insurance market contracted by 13% in 2009, to 1.63bn RON (385m euros). Prior to the crisis, insurers were used to two-digit growth rates each year. "We've budgeted 5% higher gross underwritten premiums in 2010. We are counting on improved sales compared with last year, not necessarily in terms of the number of contracts, but of the average premium paid by insured clients, owing to the rising insured sum and additional clauses attached to contracts," Cornelia Coman, general manager of ING Asigurari, told ZF. The insurer late last year carried out a life insurance promotion campaign in the wake of which clients started buying policies with higher insured sums, which drove up the average premium per client, states ING manager. The insurer plans to launch its first euro-denominated unit-linked product, with a minimum guaranteed return, soon.