Asirom loses top three position to Groupama

Groupama Asigurari, a company created in August through the merger of Asiban and BT Asigurari, in which French Groupama group has invested almost half a billion euros, in late September ranked third on the insurance market, a position that was in the same period of 2008 filled by Asirom, which dropped to sixth. Asirom was for years one of the biggest players on the market, but this year saw its turnover go down by almost 25%, according to some estimates. According to the insurers' ranking after the first nine months of this year drawn up by ZF, Allianz-Tiriac and Omniasig are still on the top two positions on the market (overall, on general and life insurance segments). Insurers' turnovers have been seriously dented by car market decline, on the general insurance segment, as well as by the soaring number of unemployed people and falling wages, on the life insurance segment.

"There will be a lot of unemployed people in 2010 and we'll have another rough year in life insurance. 2010 will probably resemble this year, when we expect the volume of new policies to match the level of 2006," Cornelia Coman, general manager of ING Asigurari, leader of the life insurance market, told ZF.

The third quarter brought domestic insurers renewed declines in gross underwritten premiums, with only three companies among the top ten seeing rising turnovers in late September.

Allianz-Tiriac is still on the top position in insurers' ranking (on the overall market), with total underwritten premiums worth 971m RON (230m euros), 6% below the level of September 2008.

Close behind the market leader is Omniasig, held by Austria's Vienna Insurance Group, with total underwritten premiums worth 858m RON (203m euros) in late September, down 7%.

Groupama ranks third. According to some estimates, Groupama in late September had gross underwritten premiums standing at 664m RON (157m euros), 6% lower than the cumulated turnovers of Asiban and BT in the first three quarters of 2008.