The Commissariat aux assurances, Luxembourg's insurance regulator, has announced that the third quarter of 2017 has seen a continuation of trends witnessed during the first two quarters of the year with regard to the change in the inflow of the direct insurance sector: all lines of insurance combined, premium income has increased by 12.58% compared to the same period last year.
Over the first nine months of the 2017 fiscal year, overall inflows increased significantly, with a growth of 14.93%, with premiums up by 16.74% in life insurance, but only by 4.35% in non-life insurance.
In life insurance, the growth in premium income in the first three quarters of 2017 mask divergent trends according to the type of products, confirming the trends observed in the first half of the year. The growth in inflows was attributable exclusively to unit-linked products, whose premiums increased by 38.22% while the inflow relative to guaranteed return products fell by 21.63%. These movements reflect the persistently low level of remuneration likely to be offered by guaranteed rate products and the stated desire of life insurers to reorient their customers towards unit-linked products.
Life insurers' total technical provisions amounted to €168.57 billion at the end of September 2017, up 9.04% compared to the end of September 2016 and 1.40% compared to the end. June 2017. The €2.33 billion increase in the third quarter of 2017 is exclusively attributable to the revaluation of contracts, while the net inflow is negative, the new premiums being €0.34 billion lower than the amount of redemptions. However, the redemption rate has returned to a historically low level of 6.54% of the technical provisions.
Non-life insurance rose by 4.35% over the first nine months of 2017. Insurers working essentially, if not exclusively on the Luxembourg market, recorded a growth in their premium revenues of 3.20%. With a 7.69% increase in their premiums, companies operating abroad in non-life insurance lines, excluding marine insurance, are progressing much more significantly.
Marine insurance, for which only Q2 figures are available and which is mainly due to a few large mutuals whose inflow reflects the evolution of claims, declined by 8.76% over this period.
