A delegation of the global insurer ALLIANZ led by Antoine ISSA, Regional Director for Middle East and South Africa has recently met the Armenian Minister of finance Vardan ARAMYAN, to assess the business prospects on the local market.

According to the Armenian Ministry of finance press service, "one of the goals of the ALLIANZ Group's visit to Armenia was to observe the possibilities and prospects the country has in order to operate there. Minister Vardan ARAMYAN introduced the current macroeconomic situation and the economic growth trends of the Republic of Armenia for the upcoming years. The sides also touched upon the current situation of Armenia's insurance sector and the recent reforms in it. At the end of the meeting the parties expressed mutual readiness for further cooperation. The RA Minister of Finance Vardan ARAMYAN noted that the Armenian side is ready to discuss concrete proposals for cooperation".

ArmInfo experts say that the reason of the ALLIANZ visit may be the Group's interest in establishing the first life insurer in the country. According to the local legislation, as composite insurers are not allowed to conduct insurance business, Armenian non-life insurers should set up a separate specialised company for life insurance. "However, the level of capitalization of existing companies and the total absence of a life insurance culture in the country hinders the formation of this market segment. Large world companies, such as ALLIANZ, could become pioneers in this matter in Armenia".

At the end of 2016, the Armenian insurance market totaled about AMD 33 billion (about EUR 64 million). The aggregated GWP portfolio was made up of 11% - property insurance, 55% - MTPL, 17% - health insurance, 6% - MoD, 10% - other non-life insurance classes.

Regarding the active players in the market, on December 31, 2016, six insurance companies reported underwriting activity (only in the non-life segment), of which, three of them are subsidiaries of some Russian groups: ROSGOSSTRAKH, INGOSSTRAKH and RESO.

According to the reported volume of GWP at the end of the previous year, the largest insurers on the local market were ROSGOSSTRAKH Armenia (29.3% market share), INGO Armenia (27.1%) and NAIRI Insurance (17.1%) followed by SIL Insurance (11.9%), RESO (9.4%) and ARMENIA Insurance (5.2%).