Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Russia, CIS states, Turkey and Israel
For some years these regional markets - excluding Russia and the CIS states - have been handled by our life branch in Stockholm, with a concentration on Sweden, Norway and Israel. These three markets account for 80.8% of our business volume. Finland, the Baltic countries, Poland and Bulgaria also play a noteworthy role.
In the Scandinavian markets we support first and foremost life insurers that focus on unit-linked products and bancassurance models, while in Israel long-term morbidity policies such as long-term care and critical illness dominate.
In this context we are currently seeing rapidly growing interest on the part of our cedants in efficient application systems that can be integrated into the overall application process at point of sale, thereby ensuring prompt processing for policyholders - a precondition that is especially essential in bancassurance business. To this end, working in close cooperation with highly respected IT systems providers, we have developed a variety of state-of-the-art system solutions that we deploy at several ceding companies in Scandinavia and the Baltic markets.
The gross premium volume booked by the Stockholm branch in the year under review was significantly influenced by the expiry of earlier financing business and totalled EUR 81.3 million (EUR 86.9 million); profitability was again highly gratifying.
Looking ahead to the future cultivation of life markets in Russia and the CIS states, we set up a new underwriting unit in Hannover in the year under review with actuaries who are native speakers of Russian, Ukrainian and Georgian. In the coming years they will substantially reinforce our activities in this region. Particularly in the Russian market, where we have already acquired our first clients, we have identified a considerable long-term potential.