Visible and effective regulation seen as critical to growth of market

The Albanian insurance market has developed only since the fall of the Communist regime in the early 1990s. The political and economic history of the country had left a legacy of problems that were reflected in the insurance market: not least a culture of corruption and the absence of a tradition of insurance among the population. But since the new Financial Supervisory Authority replaced an earlier, largely ineffective supervisory institution in 2006, a comprehensive new insurance law has been passed. The industry is now effectively policed and there is an increasing number of foreign equity participants

In 2007 the Albanian insurance market comprised 10 companies, of which seven were purely non-life, two were purely life, and one a composite. All companies are locally-established joint-stock companies. There are now three companies with partial foreign ownership; a fourth with foreign equity, was licensed in 2006, but appears not to have traded in 2007.