Income from insurance activity between January-July increased by 4.3% y-o-y and amounted to KZT 160 billion*. Although positive, the market dynamic recorded so far this year is less impressive than the last years' one (12.8%), the allinsurance.kz portal reads.

The main reason for the declining trend of income growth this year was low GWP under direct insurance contracts (-4.7%). But at the same time, growth of inward reinsurance premiums let the market recover and show total growth at the level of 3.8%. Local insurers try to keep more net retained risks, thus reducing the share of premiums ceded in reinsurance by 24.7%.

Aggregate income of all the market during the first 7 months of 2018 amounted to KZT 213.3 billion (+15.2%). The expenses of insurers saw a slight increase. It is worth noting that insurers try to cut all current expenses as much as possible but for the 7 months of this year, their growth reached only 6.4% (vs 33.8% a year ago). However, despite the slower growth rate the weight of expenses in income remains at a very high level (72%).

Profit during the period under consideration went up by 45.8% (a year ago profit dropped almost twice). The market average loss ratio is 28.7%. Aggregate assets increased by 8.2% to KZT 285.5 billion and total equity capital went up by 9.6% to KZT 446.2 billion.

The market demonstrates a strong consolidation trend and the share of medium and big insurers is going up against mergers of businesses and companies. As of now, TOP-10 in GWP keep 65.8% share (vs 61.5% a year ago), their share in total assets reaches 76.5% (vs 75.5% a year ago) and their share in aggregate equity capital amounts to 78.3% (vs 77.2%). At that, based on the data of Finprom.kz service, over 50% of all market assets are owned by TOP-5 (for the first half of 2018, market assets increased by 10.9%). Total assets of all companies are coming closer to KZT 1 trillion, meaning continuously increasing interest of customers in insurance products and wave of insurance activity.

In terms of asset volume in the first half of the year, the leader was EURASIA (KZT 246.9 billion,+19.4%), second was VICTORY (KZT 84.4 billion, +7.2%), third - NOMAD LIFE (KZT 73 billion,+21.1%), fourth - KHALYK-Life (KZT 69.9 billion, +25.9%), and the fifth leading - KAZKOMMERTS-Life (KZT 64.9 billion, +13.3%). But the highest asset growth rates were recorded by ASIA-Life (+87.4%), INTERTICH (+30.7%), and KHALYK-Life (+25.9%).

*EUR 1 = 405.54 KZT (as of 31.07.2018)