Iran Private Insurance Market Share Hits 62%

Private insurance companies accounted for 62.2% of the total premium income in Iran's insurance market during the last Iranian year that ended on March 20, 2017, registering a growth of 3% year-on-year.

According to the latest data, released by the Central Insurance of Iran, the remaining share of the country's insurance premium was controlled by Iran Insurance Company, the sole state-owned player in the sector.

The figures show that private insurance firms paid 57.3% of the total claims and the rest was covered by IIC.

This is while the loss ratio of private insurers stood at 59.5% during the period, 14.7% lower than that of state-owned insurance companies.

IIC controlled over half the market in previous years, giving rise to fears of monopoly and unfair competition among the industry players.  

The government and Central Insurance of Iran have announced plans to alter the role of IIC in the market to open the field wider for private insurance players and give an overall boost to the insurance industry.

Premium Incomes

According to the report, the Iranian insurance industry earned 277.2 trillion rials ($7.4 billion) by selling insurance policies in the last Iranian year, registering a growth of 22.5% compared with the year before.

A handful of insurance firms, namely Iran, Asia- a leading private firm, Dana, Alborz, Parsian- affiliated with Parsian Bank, Pasargad-affiliated with Bank Pasargad Iran, Moalem Insurance Company (previously known as Export and Investment Insurance Company) and Karafarin-affiliated with Karafarin Bank, accounted for 82.8% of the total premium incomes and the rest was shared by the other 20 insurance companies.

The number of sold policies reached 58.6 million during the aforementioned period, which shows an increase of 15.4% year-on-year.

Personal auto policies remained the top source of revenue for insurers in the period, marking a growth of 28.8% and accounting for 39.5% of their portfolio. Insurers earned 109.4 trillion rials ($2.9 billion) by selling 20.2 million policies in this category.

Medical and life insurance came next in generating premiums that reached 65.2 trillion rials ($1.7 billion) and 37.1 trillion rials ($1 billion), constituting 23.5% and 13.4% of the total premiums, respectively.

Non-obligatory insurance policies, which include all the categories except PAPs and accidents, account for 56.8% of the generated premiums.

Losses

The industry’s total paid claims amounted to 180.2 trillion rials ($4.8 billion) and involved 32.5 million cases during the year to March 20, marking a rise of 24.8% year-on- year.

More than 30 million cases are related to medical insurance policies.  

PAPs owned the lion's share of the losses, which adds up to more than 78 trillion rials ($2.08 billion), accounting for 43.4% of the total sum. Medical insurance policies also paid 55.3 trillion rials ($1.4 billion) in losses, which equal 30.7% of the entire indemnities paid by insurers.

The highest loss ratio belongs to medical insurance policies at 84.87%. Vehicle insurance and personal auto policies at 71.98% and 71.44% had the second and third highest loss ratio, respectively.

The average loss ratio of insurance market is 65%, which marks a slight rise compared to the previous year.

Life Insurance Booms

Data from CII's website indicate a 36.6% growth in premium income for life insurance policies YOY. The number of life policies approached 3 million during the one-year period, registering an increase of 7.5% compared with the previous year.

While life policies generated 37.1 trillion rials ($1 billion) in premium income, insurers paid over 11.8 trillion rials ($314 million) in annuities, indicating a rise of 31.8% compared with the corresponding period of last year. The loss ratio, however, stood under 32% which is below the insurance market's average.