Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov. 23 /Trend, A.Akhundov /
The insurance market of Azerbaijan expects growth in 2011, but it will not exceed 20 percent, director general of the Azerbaijani-Turkish Başak-Inam Sığorta Insurance Company Orkhan Hasanov told Trend.
"The insurance market in Azerbaijan must increase several times. Because, despite the relative increase in market, the share of insurance in the country's GDP decreases from year to year," Hasanov said.
However, according to him, under the present conditions, the country's market can not bring a sharp rise. According to the State Insurance Supervision Service at the Ministry of Finance of Azerbaijan, in January-October the total fees of the Azerbaijani insurance companies totaled 130.3 million manat, payments - 41.27 million manat.
Compared to the same period of the last year, the total premiums fell by 5.85 percent (in January-October 2009, fees totaled 138.41 million manat), the payments fell by 1.94 percent (42.09 million manat).
"The potential of Azerbaijani insurance market is very high. I estimate it at 3-4 billion manat. We can achieve a substantial growth after overcoming a series of stages, including after improving the quality of services, professionalism of insurance specialists. Under our current opportunities and market level, we do not need sharp increase in amount of the insurance market. This could be a blow to the already fragile insurance market, because in this case, the question arises to deal with large risks," Hasanov said.
According to AXA Medla Region Company's director on the development of new markets in the Mediterranean region and Latin America Frederick Flezhu, now the insurance market of Azerbaijan makes up 0.5 percent of GDP, whereas in developed countries, its share in GDP is more than eight percent.
At present, 27 insurance companies, with five with foreign capital, operate in Azerbaijan.