Foreign insurers flood local market

Improvements in Bulgaria’s supervisory regime and the country’s accession to the EU have led to a transforming influx of foreign insurance companies. The impact on the non-life market has been marked. Despite the effect of falling property rates, non-life premium volumes have grown by around 20% a year over the last five years. This trend is expected to continue, partly because of the rapid increase in new car ownership, and partly because of a renaissance in the small-to-medium sized business sector, which some insurers claim is growing by 20% to 30% a year

At the time this report was being prepared the Bulgarian insurance market consisted of 20 non-life companies, 15 life companies, two life mutuals and 16 voluntary health funds. There were also six “freedom of establishment” branches, four of them non-life and two of them life. An important structural feature of the market is the emergence of insurance or financial services groups which typically include a bank or leasing company, life and non-life insurers, a pension company and a voluntary health insurance fund.