CertAsig looks forward to a successful 2018, even better than 2017!
A key theme to our 2018 growth plans revolves around our expansion in CEE, in particular Bulgaria and soon Czech Republic. So CertAsig is not only a Romanian Insurance Company, but a European Insurance Company. Our strategy is to hire the best local underwriters in our offices, with strong broker relationships and to focus on low loss ratio products.
Nevertheless, Romania will remain our largest market, currently with 65% of total premiums, where our growth is based on developing our existing broker and client base organically, as well as increasing insurance for new clients. Overall, we hope to grow by at least 15% to 20%, in line with 2017 growth rate. In our strongest lines such as bonds, liability and commercial property, we grew by more than 20% in 2017.
The main targeted classes for CertAsig growth are non-marine liability, bonds, engineering and marine cargo. We made some necessary changes to our marine portfolio in 2017, which will affect 2018 – the main changes were that we no longer offer Protection & Indemnity, but will proactively grow our hull and cargo accounts. This business is primarily sourced from Turkey through brokers, but, depending on market conditions, we will also target in Romania and Bulgaria general cargo and other vessels. These are core marine markets for us, hence our offices in Constanta and Istanbul.
Geographically, we expect the highest rate of growth for 2018 to come from Bulgaria again, where we doubled premiums in 2017. Growth drivers included excellent underwriting and the new bond insurance market which CertAsig was instrumental in pioneering. We expect our new plans for Czech Republic to materialize in 2018, where we will focus on bonds and liability. The Czech market is significantly large and offers great potential.
As usual we will look to innovate new, but relevant, products for our corporate clients, such as custom bonds, special D&O cover and cyber insurance in response to the new GDPR laws in force from May 2018.
Finally, we will further optimise our reinsurance programmes for 2018. Some features of the reinsurance are Solvency 2 related. We will continue with many of our core reinsurers in 2018, namely Hannover Re, Swiss Re, Lloyd’s and Partner Re. We are grateful for their continued support and loyalty.
As this is the last newsletter from CertAsig in 2017, I wish you all an excellent end of the year, Happy Holidays and a great 2018, with renewed energy!