BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 23
By Yusif Aghayev - Trend:
The total potential of insurance premiums in the compulsory real estate insurance market in Azerbaijan is nearly 200 million-250 million manat [$117.6 million-$147 million] per year, Executive Director of the country’s Compulsory Insurance Bureau Rashad Ahmadov told Trend.
"The potential of the compulsory real estate insurance segment is quite large and the growth prospects are considerable,” he said. “As regards to compulsory real estate insurance fees in 2019, insurance premiums worth about 43.5 million manat [$25.59 million] were collected for that year.”
“Noting the growth dynamics for this type of insurance, I can say that 200,848 contracts were concluded from January through April of the current year, which is 5.3 times more than the same period in 2019, and the amount of collected insurance premiums made up 20.24 million manat [$11.91 million], showing an increase of more than 66 percent," Ahmadov also said.
According to the executive director, Azerbaijan expects digitalization of compulsory real estate insurance.
“At the beginning of this year, the working group, jointly with the relevant structures, carried out test transfer of all processes related to compulsory property insurance to online format. This was done as part of measures taken in accordance with the order of Azerbaijan’s president on digitalization of the country's economy,” he noted.
Ahmadov said the transfer will be possible after adding the relevant data on real estate to the online system of the Compulsory Insurance Bureau. “To implement this, it is necessary to amend the law ‘On compulsory types of insurance’. After that, it will be possible to supervise compliance with the mandatory requirements for property insurance and apply appropriate sanctions to those who do not comply with them,” he added.
Compulsory insurance in Azerbaijan is carried out by insurance companies licensed for a certain type of compulsory insurance included in the Compulsory Insurance Bureau.
There are currently 15 such companies, 4 of which operate in life insurance, and 11 in non-life insurance segments.
As Trend reported earlier with reference to the State Service on Property Issues under the Ministry of Economy, information on real estate was integrated into the portal of the electronic government of Azerbaijan.
Presently, 21 insurance companies and one reinsurance company operate in Azerbaijan.
(1 USD = 1.7 AZN on May 23)
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