Policies rose on a low base – Kommersant

Major insurers are seeing a sharp increase in policy sales to retail customers in the first quarter of 2023. At the same time, the maximum growth was shown by accident insurance, property insurance, as well as motor types of insurance – OSAGO and hull insurance. According to experts, this is due to the dynamics of lending and the effect of a low base, which will support sales growth in the second quarter.

A number of large insurers showed an increase in sales of policies to retail customers in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period last year, follows from a Kommersant survey.

At the same time, the indicators of companies belonging to banking groups grew faster than other insurers. Thus, clients of Sberbank Insurance purchased about 3 million policies in January-March, which is 22% higher than last year. The number of policies sold at Sovcombank Insurance exceeded 400,000, an increase of 19%. At the same time, Ingosstrakh showed growth of 13% in sales of policies (more than 7.7 million units), Zetta Insurance – by 12%. Rosgosstrakh noted that the number of contracts concluded in the first quarter of 2023 roughly corresponds to the same period of the previous year.

Such dynamics explains the outstripping growth of the banking sales channel compared to the non-banking one, says Yevgeny Ufimtsev, president of the VSS. Aleksey Yanin, managing director for ratings of insurance and investment companies of Expert RA, believes that it is necessary to keep in mind the state of the economy in this period of last year. First of all, at the end of February-March 2022, lending almost completely stopped and, accordingly, sales of insurance products related to lending — insurance against accidents and illnesses, property insurance for individuals, and car hull insurance — sharply decreased. Now, compared to the low base of the first quarter of last year, bank insurers are growing rapidly due to the recovery in lending.

According to the Bank of Russia, in the first quarter of 2023, the volume of loan portfolios began to recover to the values ​​of 2021. In particular, the volume of the portfolio of mortgage loans to individuals increased by 4% and reached 14.7 trillion rubles, the portfolio of car loans grew by 3%, to 1.3 trillion rubles, the portfolio of consumer loans increased by almost 3%, to 12.3 trillion rubles .

Market participants say that among the leading segments in terms of the number of policies sold were accident insurance, property insurance, comprehensive insurance and VHI. In particular, Ingosstrakh showed an increase in sales of accident insurance by 49%, RESO-Garantia — by 39%. Also in the property insurance segment, sales of Sberbank Insurance policies grew by 40%, and by 27% in Ingosstrakh. In RESO-Garantia, sales of home insurance policies grew by 27% and apartment insurance by 24%. Zetta Insurance reported on the increase in sales of hull insurance policies by 23%. Rosgosstrakh also noted that the number of hull insurance contracts has grown significantly, but this does not have an effect on fees, since the share of boxed products is increasing.

Evgeny Ufimtsev explains that in March 2022 there was a sharp decline in passenger car sales. However, the market has since recovered. And in March 2023, sales were significantly higher than a year earlier, which could be the reason for the growth of motor insurance in the first quarter of 2023, he believes. At the same time, a non-standard situation is developing on the OSAGO market – there are many customers, but not all of them are of interest to insurers, notes independent expert Kirill Bobylkov. As a result, companies with access to a large customer base can “choose” customers, creating targeted offers for those who are expected to be less unprofitable, he notes.

Experts expect that the same segments will continue to lead in the second quarter. Credit insurance will be among the leaders in terms of growth in the number of policies sold in the second quarter, Alexei Yanin believes. According to him, this is due to the fact that lending has stagnated for almost the entire second quarter of 2022, since the low base effect will continue to operate here.

Julia Poslavskaya