Azerbaijan, Baku, March 18 / Trend I.Khalilova /
By the end of 2013, the Başak İnam Sığorta insurance company plans to increase its market share to two per cent, company Chairman Orkhan Hasanov told Trend.
"This growth will be achieved through a new strategy for the development of retail services by 2015 adopted last year and developed with the support of the Azerbaijan Bank Training Centre. A new business vision has allowed the company to increase premiums by about 27 per cent last year, given the company has not yet received permission to provide compulsory insurance," Hasanov said.
If we analyse the situation on the insurance market we see that market growth last year, not considering mandatory insurance, was low totalling nearly 10 per cent, whereas the insurance market in general, has grown by 60.8 per cent.
This according to Hasanov, confirms the company's plans are set in the right direction as the strategy has produced concrete results within six months. The company ended 2012 with a profit (about 300,000 manat), but insignificant due to an increase in expenses for opening offices and branches in regions of the country.
To date, Başak İnam Sığorta has six branches, four of which opened in 2012.
In January-February, Başak İnam Sığorta collected 50 percent more than in the first quarter of 2012. The company's activities are according to the plan, and it is expected to collect about seven million manat of premiums this year.
"We try to get a licence to operate on compulsory insurance. Without that we are planning to collect up to seven million manat of premiums," Hasanov said.
According to the 2012 results, the company collected 3.4 million manat of premiums and made payments worth 0.95 million manat.
Currently, the company's portfolio is formed mainly through CASCO vehicle insurance (40 per cent), property insurance (20 per cent) and health insurance, accident insurance and engineering (40 per cent).
"We have problems in the sale of property insurance as we are not members of the Bureau for compulsory insurance which provides a 100 per cent guarantee of the sum insured. Meanwhile, we are doing voluntary property insurance and gradually entering the market of private houses," Hasanov said.
To date the company's market share amounts to over one per cent and by the end of the implementation of the retail development strategy, it will reach five per cent, the chairman said.
"The companies operating on Azerbaijan's retail market mainly implement compulsory insurance. Therefore, the share of such companies in the market is high and there are no trends for development of retail areas without consideration of compulsory insurance.
"There are companies oriented on development of retail sales in perspective, but there are not so many of these, "Hasanov said.
In January-February 2013, Başak-İnam Sığorta collected 772.309 million manat of premiums and paid 79.703 million manat of compensation for insurance claims. Insurance charges increased by 1.92 times, while payments reduced by 1.9 times.
Başak-İnam Sığorta Şirkəti has been operating in the insurance market of the country since 1996. Some 19.95 per cent of the shares are owned by Zamin Bank, 48 per cent account for individuals, 17 per cent are owned by Groupama Sigorta A.Ş. (Turkish subsidiary of the largest insurance companies in Europe Groupama), 8.5 per cent by Turanbank, six per cent - AzerTürkBank and less than one per cent account for the non-bank credit organisation Aqrarkredit.
The official exchange rate on March 18 is 0.7848 AZN / USD.
