Bulgarian insurers have the largest presence in the SEE Top100 insurance ranking, with 18 companies, according to the 17th edition of SEE TOP 100 by SeeNews. However, the Top 10 group is dominated by Romanian and Slovenian companies, four for each of the two markets.

SEE TOP 100 ranks the biggest companies in Southeast Europe by total revenue for the fiscal year 2023, considering a group of 11 countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia. The SEE TOP 100 insurers report ranks the largest insurers in the same area, excluding reinsurers. The companies are ranked according to the GWP data from non-consolidated income statements for 2023, converted in European currency according to the official exchange rate in the last day of 2023.

According to GWP data listed in the ranking analysis, the Top 100 insurers in SEE wrote together gross premiums worth EUR 12.4 billion in 2023, which almost by 17% more y-o-y as compared with the total GWP of the 2022 Top 100 insurers. Data also show that the growth accelerated at regional level, from 9.3% in 2022 vs.2021. One should note that in comparison with the 2023 edition, the Top 100 includes three new companies - Croatia Osiguruvanje AD, North Macedonia (rank 100 according 2023 results), 95 new Signal Iduna Asigurari SA, Romania (95), EIG Re EAD, Bulgaria (34) -, while other three left the group: Wiener Osiguranje VIG a.d. Banja Luka, BiH (rank 84 according to 2022 results), Illyria Sh.a., Kosovo (96) and Euroins Insurance AD Skopje, North Macedonia (100).

A closer look at the Top 10 companies in this ranking, the “Big Ten” as named by the SeeNews authors, reveals that their aggregated GWP volume accounts for about 44% of total Top 100 GWP. The most significant change in the Top 10 structure is the fall of Vzajemna Zdravstvena Zavarovalnica, the largest health insurer in Slovenia, from the 8^th to the 10^th position, following the 8.3% y-o-y decrease in GWP accompanied by a 19.5% fall in the net profit. The company’s results were significantly impacted by the changed in the Slovenian legislation on health insurance which first imposed a cap on the price of the supplementary health insurance, than abolished voluntary supplementary health insurance entirely starting January 2024. This change triggered the rise in ranking of Serbian Dunav Osiguranje AD and Romanian Asirom VIG, who have each advanced one position in Top 10.

In profitability terms, it is worth noting that the combined net profit of the region’s Top 10 insurers increased y-o-y by about 32% to EUR 232 million in 2023, driven by the significantly improved profitability of the Top 3 companies. In fact, the Top 3 companies are generating together more than 65% of the consolidated Top 10 net profit while controlling about 50% of the GWP volume.

The full SEE Top 100 by SeeNews is available for download at SEE TOP 100 Downloads | SEE TOP 100 | SeeNews.