The massive growth in sales of home appliances, furniture and homes in the instalments system is producing some "side effects", namely an increase in revenues for the insurance companies working with the lending banks.
"The gross premiums collected in Q1 amounted to 246bn ROL, 2.5 times more than in the same time last year. Why is that? Policy sales are following the boom in lending and leasing," Mugurel Ceraceanu, Asiban general manager says.
Buying something in instalments entails a risk of failure to pay, so that shops or banks demand their clients to buy a life insurance policy for an amount equal to the credit. The stores or leasing companies can in their turn shield from the non-payment risk by financial loss insurance.
The banks and insurance companies have therefore come to form very tight relations in the course of time, with every bank "recommending" the policies of a certain insurer. Moreover, now that the lending has increased due to the speedy drop in interests over the last 12 months, the banks are practically pulling up the insurance companies.
Asiban, whose shareholders include four banks: Banca Comerciala Romana (Romanian Commercial Bank - BCR), Banca Romana pentru Dezvoltare (Romanian Development Bank - BRD)-Societe Generale, Casa de Economii si Consemnatiuni (Romanian Savings Bank - CEC) and Banca Transilvania is one of the insurance companies that have initially grown precisely because of this special relationship with the banks.
"We are not working only with the banks that hold stake in our company. Sales of fire and other property damage insurance, as well as of banking and life insurance policies have gone up, accounting for 60% of our portfolio," Ceraceanu explains.
Also Fanel Plopeanu, Omniasig's deputy general manager says policy sales are pushed up by this development in lending. "We have indeed felt this influence," he admits, without going into details about the Q1 financial results, though. Plopeanu adds that regardless of the high demand, Omniasig maintains a not very active involvement in financial loss insurance. "We are cautious when it comes to this. We are carefully analysing it." sorin.pislaru@zf.ro
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