The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has included 13 insurance companies in the list of insurers with the right to conduct transactions with non-resident reinsurers, the regulator’s website says.
According to its data, on March 6, 2023 the list included IC “TAS”, IC “Universalna”; on March 13 – IC “Unica”, IC “Arsenal Insurance”, IC “ARKS”, IC “PZU Ukraine”, IC “TAS”; on March 20 – IC “INGO”; on March 29 – IC “Insurance Guarantees of Ukraine”; on April 4 – IC “Busin”; on April 17 – IC “Guardian”, IC “Ukrainian fire insurance company”, IC “European insurance alliance”.
As reported, on February, 13, the NBU reported that it expanded the possibilities of insurance companies on payment of insurance payments under reinsurance contracts with non-resident reinsurers, and specified the requirements for such operations.
Thus, starting from February 14 insurers, insurance and reinsurance brokers could make payments under respective contracts without restrictions as to the date of conclusion of such contracts under condition of fulfillment of a number of conditions.
In order to simplify the procedure for cross-border reinsurance payments, the National Bank has created a list of insurers and established the procedure for deciding on the inclusion and exclusion of an insurer from the relevant list, as well as the grounds for leaving applications without consideration.
In order to be included to the specified list a respective application should be submitted to the NBU. Inclusion of insurers in the list takes place if the insurer complies with a number of requirements, namely, absence of enforcement actions taken against the insurer for violation of legislation requirements in the sphere of financial monitoring (except written clauses) in realization of special economic and other sanctions, compliance with transparency requirements as to ownership structure, compliance with solvency, capital adequacy and risk ratios within the year prior to application submission and within the period of being in the list of insurers.
In addition, the financial strength (stability) rating of the non-resident reinsurer, with which the reinsurance transaction is performed, should correspond to the level not lower than “A3” (Moody’s Investors Service), “A-” (Standard & Poor’s), “A-” (Fitch Ratings), “A-” (A.M. Best).
The situation with the reinsurance of Ukrainian risks in international markets has worsened since the beginning of the war, and a rather small circle of reinsurers who worked with Ukrainian companies has also narrowed, the director of the representative office of Oakeshott Insurance Consultants Ltd. (Britain) in Ukraine, Tetiana Babko, told Interfax-Ukraine.
According to her, many reinsurers are not ready to see the risks due to the war and the fall of the economy, since in such cases the quality of the risks themselves is sharply reduced. Others see a danger to themselves in compliance, which is very complicated due to restrictions and sanctions, so they simply exclude not only Belarus and the Russian Federation, but also Ukraine from their business. Some reinsurers prolong old contracts, but do not write new business.
In addition, there were also difficulties for obligators with a renewal date of April 1. Few insurance companies in Ukraine managed to get a renewal for a year, more often reinsurers offered to prolong the current contract for two or three months.
“It is difficult for obligators to adequately assess the situation and their ability to continue working in Ukraine. Now, on July 1, the situation will be even more aggravated, as forecasts about the duration of the war are getting worse, the volume of premiums in obligators is declining, and there is little economic sense for reinsurers. And this is against the backdrop of a lack of insurers’ and brokers’ opportunity to buy foreign currency and pay reinsurance premiums,” Babko said.
The purchase of currency for reinsurance, in accordance with resolution No. 81 of the National Bank of Ukraine dated April 22, 2022 on amendments to resolution No. 18 of the NBU board dated February 24, 2022 is limited to a small list of risks. This has an extremely negative impact on the willingness of reinsurers to cooperate with the Ukrainian market.
According to Babko, the insurance business, primarily various associations, is actively coming up with their proposals and interacting with the authorities. However, the insurance market has not developed a unified position for discussion with the regulator.
Insurance companies of Ukraine in January-March 2020 paid insurance premiums in the amount of UAH 2.78 billion under insurance risk reinsurance contracts, which is 37.4% or UAH 1.66 billion less than in the same period in 2019, member of the National Commission for the State Regulation of Financial Services Markets Oleksandr Zaletov has told Interfax-Ukraine.
According to him, despite the fact that in the first quarter of 2020, net insurance premiums compared to the same period in 2019 increased by a mere 1.8%, to UAH 9.85 billion, the situation in the reinsurance market has changed.
Firstly, cooperation with international reinsurers has intensified. So non-resident reinsurers were paid UAH 884 million, which is 12.6% or UAH 98.9 million more than in the same period in 2019 (UAH 785.3 million for the first quarter of 2019). In the first quarter of 2020, as before, predominantly reinsurance is carried out in the member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The most actively cooperating with Ukraine in the field of reinsurance were insurers and specialized reinsurers from Germany, which accounted for 19.7% of the premiums in this segment, as well as Austria (19.4%), the UK (14.6%), and Poland (12.4%), France (7.2%), Switzerland (5.6%), Italy (3.9%), the Czech Republic (3.8%), the United States (3%) and Belgium (2.4%), and the rest accounted for less than 2%.
In January-March 2020, non-resident reinsurers made insurance payments in the amount of UAH 473 million, which is 62.2% or UAH 181 million more than in the same period in 2019 (UAH 292 million for the first quarter of 2019). A significant share was held by reinsurers from the Czech Republic (31.2%), Germany (24.3%), Poland (17.6%), Great Britain (9%), Austria (7.6%), France (2.4%), and Italy (2.4%), the rest less than 2%.
Secondly, there were significant reductions in operations in the domestic reinsurance market. So, in the first quarter of 2020, resident reinsurers were paid insurance premiums in the amount of UAH 1.89 billion, which is 48.3% less compared to the same period in 2019 (UAH 3.65 billion for the first quarter of 2019).
The volume of reinsurance by Ukrainian insurers in Austria in 2019 grew 2.5-fold, to UAH 639 million, being 19.4% of the total reinsurance volume abroad (8.5% in 2018), according to a posting on the website of the National Commission for Financial Service Markets Regulation of Ukraine.
The share of reinsurance in Germany increased from 18.6% in 2018 to 22.3% in 2019 (to UAH 535 million), the U.K. it decreased from 23.7% to 17.3%, to UAH 569.9 million, Poland it decreased from 12.4% to 10% (UAH 331.3 million), in Switzerland decreased from 10.6% to 7% (UAH 229.8 million), in France increased to 6% from 5% (UAH 196.8 million), in the United States decreased from 4.2% to 3.6% (UAH 119.6 million).
According to the regulator, outbound reinsurance operations for the reporting period decreased 6.8%, to UAH 16.713 billion. In addition, reinsurance with nonresident reinsurers increased 10%, to UAH 3.298 billion.
Payments compensated by resident reinsurers amounted to UAH 297.8 million, which is 30.9% less than in 2018, for nonresident reinsurers it was UAH 2.21 billion, or 9% more than in 2018.
In relation to gross insurance premiums, the share of outbound reinsurance as at December 31, 2019 was 31.5%, which is 4.8 percentage points less than on the same date a year earlier.
The volume of reinsurance of risks by Ukrainian insurers in Austria in January-March 2019 tripled to UAH 168.5 million and accounted for 21.5% of the total reinsurance abroad, according to the website of the National Commission for the State Regulation of the Financial Services Market.
According to the regulator, reinsurance in Switzerland decreased by 4.9 times, to UAH 54.1 million. The reduction of Switzerland’s share in the total reinsurance of Ukrainian risks abroad decreased to 6.9% in Q1, 2019 from 31.3% in Q1, 2018.
The share of reinsurance in Germany increased from 13.9% to 21.3% (UAH 167.6 million), Great Britain from 15.5% to 18.4% (UAH 144.8 million), in Poland decreased from 11.5% to 10.2% (UAH 79.9 million), France increased from 3.4% to 5.4% (UAH 42.5 million).
According to the regulator, outgoing reinsurance operations in the first quarter of 2019 rose by 2.2%, to UAH 4.433 billion due to the increase in domestic reinsurance by 4.5%, to UAH 3.658 billion. At the same time, reinsurance of non-residents declined by 7.6%, to UAH 785 million.
