Adamescu plans to double profit from insurance business

The only insurance company with Romanian majority capital, Astra, controlled by businessman Dan Adamescu, has budgeted a doubling of profit for this year, to 11.8 million RON (around 2.8 million euros).

The company, which ranked fourth on the insurance market last year, plans to boost its gross underwritten premiums by 40% against 2009, to over 1 billion RON. Currently, only the top two insurers on the market have surpassed the 1-billion mark: Allianz-Tiriac, with 1.29 billion RON in premiums underwritten last year, and Omniasig, with 1.11 billion RON. Groupama is no. 3, with 887 million RON in premiums underwritten.

"We expect to see our profit double against 2009, based on estimates on gross premiums underwritten and on cost efficiency measures. We made cost cuts as early as last year. We managed to see our rent cut by 25% and we decided not to advertise our winter RCA (auto liability insurance) campaign, which did not affect sales at all," Radu Mustatea, general manager of Astra, told ZF.