The insurance market in a cross-section

The data of the official statistics cannot fill anybody with a particular optimism: the concentration in the market is growing, the preferential development belonging to the life insurance based on the "grey" salary & wages schemes; the payment level in the risk insurance sectors remains very low.

On the other hand, the insurers themselves are commenting on the results of the year quite differently. According to them, a real mass insurance is developing in the area of the motor car insurance and individual property insurance; the previous popularity of the accumulation programmes of the life assurance is returning in the regions, and the growth of the "middle class" in large cities entails the development of the individual medical insurance and the "elite" programmes of life insurance. The increase of up to 3% of the limits of attributing the insurance contributions to the prime cost has already played its part in the development of the corporate property and liability insurance as well forced many organisation to include the accident insurance and voluntary medical insurance (VMI) into social packages. In large companies, the risk-management and construction of a skilful insurance protection are turning from exotics into standard business management mechanisms. The competitiveness in the insurance field is so immense that the insurers are forced to actively advertise their services, to develop the agent networks, and to undersell to attract customers. All this is true, indeed. It turns out that the official statistics reflecting contributions and payments only in such aggregated market segments as life insurance, personal insurance, property insurance and liability insurance is "lowering" the achievements of the market. Really, the year of 2000 led to a further flourishing of the "schemes" but if each conventional insurance market segment were to be considered separately, one could see that the year of 2000 has been also very successful one from the point of view of the development of the real insurance. Contributions, payments and number of contracts have grown in all the insurance activity sectors. Many new sectors have developed unknown as far back as two years ago, these being mainly the ones of the corporate liability insurance and individual insurance.

In the "classics", the universal insurance companies are leading Unfortunately, there is no single data pool available about various segments of the insurance market. That is why we have analysed only the indices of the leading, information friendly insurance companies. As for the 2000' results, 83 Russian insurance companies have filled in our questionnaires (their number was 66 last year). With this in mind, eight of them enter the first ten by the contribution volume collected in the Russian insurance market in the voluntary insurance sectors other than life insurance (risk insurance), seven of them pertaining to the second ten. The total contributions of the companies questioned as per risk insurance amounted to RUR37.9 billion which is more than 60% of the contributions of all the Russian companies. Taking into account the specific character of the activities of the majority of the non-disclosing insurance companies, one could say that we have involved the competitive markets of the insurance services into our investigation practically in full. Thus, no answers have been given by such companies as MAKS, "Renaissance Insurance Group", "Spasskiye Vorota" who play a significant part in the Russian insurance market among other companies as well as by a number of companies attending to exclusive corporate interests of their founders (e.g. the SOGAZ company).

As for contributions collected in the risk insurance sectors, the "Interros-Soglasiye" company is leading (see Tables 1 and 2). As for the 2000' results, it took the first place in the following sectors: corporate property insurance, cargo insurance and corporate liability insurance, the latter being sources of higher hazards. Somewhat poorer results, in the second ten, have been achieved by the "Interros-Soglasiye" company in the individual insurance and transport insurance sectors. The second place in collections category has been won by the "Rosgosstrakh" company leading in the individual property insurance sector as well as in the classical accumulation life insurance sector. The third one has been taken by the ROSNO company leading in the VMI area, having achieved very good results in the transport insurance, property insurance and corporate liability insurance sectors, the latter being sources of higher hazards; but it is beyond the first ten in cargo insurance and construction and erection & assembly risk insurance sectors.

Table 1 Leading insurance companies, 2000: premiums written (personal insurance, transport insurance)

^* with Liability Insurance
^** facts by system of Rosgosstrakh
^*** preliminary facts
^**** premiums as per travel insurance and aircraft insurance with received reinsurance
^***** consolidated facts from insurance company "Progress-Neva" and society of life insurance "Progress-Neva"; in column 3 facts of SO "Progress-Neva"
^****** consolidated facts from "Samara-ROSNO", "Samara-ROSNO-Med" and Samara branch ROSNO; in column 3 facts of company "Samara-ROSNO"
^******* consolidated facts from companies Belovskaya ASK, "BASK-Plus", "Bivita"; in column 3 facts of Belovskaya ASK

Table 2 Leading insurance companies, 2000: (property and liability insurance)

^* with Liability Insurance

The only company reckoned with the 15 largest ones as per contributions in all the conventional insurance sectors presented in Tables 1 and 2 is the PSK company. This company may possess the most diversified portfolio in the risk insurance sectors among all the market leaders (but it is specialising, nevertheless, in life insurance). For all this, coming into the number of the leaders in all the kinds of the insurance activities, it does not only lead in either of them but does not rise higher than the 5th line.

Among the 15 companies leading in all the sectors but one, we find the abovementioned ROSNO company (the 17th place in the construction and erection & assembly risk insurance sector) and the "Ingosstrakh" company (the 16th place in the accident insurance sector). The following companies have failures in two sectors: these are the RESO-Garantiya company (the 19th place in the water transport insurance area and the 37th place in the construction and erection & assembly insurance sector) and the VSK company (the 16th place in the corporate property fire & concomitant risks insurance sector and the 23rd place in the VMI sector, the development of the latter having been launched only some time ago). The "Lukoil" insurance company is not engaged in the overseas travel insurance and the VMI sector (here, the "Medved-LK" company, being a member of the "Lukoil" insurance group, is taking the 2nd place) and has also low collection indices in the insurance sectors not specific to its structure, such as air transport insurance and natural individual property insurance. A year ago, among the most universally successful companies were "Ingosstrakh", RESO-Garantiya and ROSNO included into the list of the 15 companies leading in all the insurance sectors analysed. True, it should be noted that the breakdown of the market into separate segments has been less precise: we have not marked out separately the overseas travel insurance, the construction and erection & assembly insurance, the corporate liability insurance, the latter being sources of higher hazards and, besides, we counted contributions in the water transport insurance and air transport insurance sectors into one column.

Segment differences

In 2000, the greatest number of companies were operating in the accident insurance sector (79 out of 83 analysed companies), corporate property insurance field (77 companies), VMI sector (73 companies), automobile insurance and cargo insurance sectors (72 companies).The least number of companies are engaged in the aviation risks and water risks insurance (29 and 35 companies, respectively) as well as in the overseas travel insurance sector (46 companies).

The lowest concentration is typical for the construction and erection & assembly insurance market where the leading company's contributions are exceeding those of the company taking the 15th place only by 11.9 times. By analogy, the relative "even" results are typical for the corporate property insurance field (12.7 times), the VMI sector (13.0 times) and the accident insurance sector (16.4 times). The greatest "stratification" of the companies is in the water transport insurance and air transport insurance sectors. But it would be incorrect for the Russian market to put the sign of equality between the notions "a low concentration" and "a high concentration". The essence of the matter is that the availability of a significant number of companies having similar good results is often connected not with the competitiveness of the market but with the latter's strong segmentation when each insurer is attending to the interests of a specific financial & industrial group. Such is the situation both in the corporate property insurance field, and in the accident insurance sector, and in the corporate VMI sector. The transport insurance, the small-size and medium-size business property insurance, the individual VMI sectors could be designated as the most competitive markets.

As a rule, universal federal insurers are leading in all the insurance sectors. The prerogative of the exceptionally large insurers is the leadership in the enterprise's liability insurance sector, the latter being sources of higher hazards: in this sector, all the 15 leading companies are joining a group of 30 Russian companies, the largest ones as per value of the insurance contributions collected in the risk insurance sector. A similar situation is in the fire & concomitant risk insurance sector: among the 15 leaders, the 43rd place, the last place as per the All-Russian risk insurance contributions, belongs to "Sheksna" company, the 68th place in the transport insurance is occupied by the National Insurance League and the 76th place in the cargo insurance is taken by the "Pari" company. On the contrary, a great value is not a distinctive feature of the companies leading in the overseas travel insurance sector (here, everything depends mainly not on the insurer but on the international service company it is co-operating with), the individual property insurance and, strange as it may seem, the water transport and air transport insurance sectors. In particular, the "Investflot" company of Samara is taking the 7th place in the water transport insurance sector having the 239th place in the Russian market; significant presence is shown by the "Rosgosstrakh-Sanct-Peterburg" and "Avikos" companies rounding the first hundred companies. The specialisation is a distinguishing feature for the air transport insurance sector, too: here, the first place is taken by the"Avikos" company (the 98th place in Russia as per contributions in the risks insurance sector), the third place being occupied by the "Moskva" company insuring the risks of the "Aeroflot" (the 48th place), the fifth place - by the "Mezhregiongarant" (the 57th place), the seventh place - by the Russkaya SK company (the 106th place). Also, the number of the 15 leaders includes the "Avia", "Itil" and "Informstrakh" companies (with not very solid indices, though) in this kind of insurance; as a matter of fact, they are on the Russian risks insurance sector market beyond the 200 largest companies.

The regionals on an all-Russian scale

The biggest number of the regional insurance companies become leaders in the civil property insurance sector. The latter includes also the regional insurance companies of the "Rosgosstrakh" system which are beyond any competition; many of them did not get into Table 2 because the data on their activities was not available to the Agency. As per aggregate contributions in this sector, the "Rosgosstrakh" system is "outrunning" its nearest rival, the "Progress-Garant" company, developed actively in 2000 on the insurance mass markets, more than by 9 times (RUR1.7 billion against RUR178 million) and the "RESO-Garantiya" following it - by 29 times.

Also, the "regionals" are successfully competing with the companies of Moscow in the VMI sector where the ratio of the former to the latter is as 2 to 3. Thus, the number of 15 companies collecting the largest contributions in this sector, includes the "Lukoil"company, the "Medved LK" company from Kogalym (2nd place) and the Industrialnaya PK company from Elista (3rd place), the "Sibir" company, a member of the "Slavneft" Group, from Nizhnevartovsk (9th place), the SKM company from Magnitogorsk (11th place), the "Surgutneftegaz" company from Surgut and the "Energopolis" from Samara. The least number of the "regionals" is in the construction and erection & assembly insurance sector where only one regional company, namely "Lukoil", is among the 15 leaders (and even this is conditional).

In the overseas travel insurance sector, the "Class" company of Saint-Petersburg is standing out among the regional insurance companies, the company specialising in this kind of insurance and taking the 6th place among insurance companies analysed by us. The leader in the risk insurance sector in Saint-Petersburg is the "Russkiy mir" company possessing a rather diversified insurance portfolio. In particular, this company is taking the 15th place as per contributions in the motor car insurance sector. Besides, the number of the 15 leaders in this field includes only one other regional insurer, this being the "Sibir" company (14th place). The two insurance companies of Saint-Petersburg - "Progress-Neva" and the "Rosgosstrakh- Saint-Petersburg", as well as the "Surgutneftegaz" company have closed in on the leaders.

"Autocasco" or motor third party insurance?

The unequivocal leader in the Russian motor car insurance sector is the Ingosstrakh"company leaving behind its principal runner-up, the "Rosgosstrakh" state system, in the contributions collected by 1.8 times. The similar indices are shown by the "RESO-Garantiya" and ROSNO companies occupying the 3rd and the 4th places. For all this, if we consider the motor car owner's liability insurance separately, the ROSNO company is taking the 2nd place in this sector outperforming not only the "RESO-Garantiya" company but the "Rosgosstrakh" state system as well. The great share of the motor third party insurancein the motor car insurance portfolio is typical also for the "Rosgosstrakh-Podmoskoviye" and SKPO companies (where the motor third party insurance amounts to 47% of the motor car insurance contributions). On the contrary, specialisation in the direct motor car insurance is typical for the regional insurance companies: a "boom" in the motor third party insurance broken out in Moscow last year did not spread over Russia yet. Thus, the share of the "Autocasco" company in the motor car insurance portfolio of the "Omsk-ASKO" company accounts for 88%, that of the "Surgutneftegaz" company - 91%, that of the "Samara-ROSNO" Group - 92%, that of the "VostSibRosso" company - 93%, and that of the SKM company - 99.7%. A number of companies from Moscow have a low motor third party insurance share, these being the National Insurance League (4%), the "Huta-Strakhovaniye" company (1%), the "Standard- Reserve" company (2%) and the National Insurance Group (7%) among them. By way of comparison: the motor third party insurance contribution share in the aggregate motor car insurance contributions amounts to: in the"Ingosstrakh" company - 17%, the "RESOGarantiya" company - 16%, the ROSNO company - 22%, the VSK company - 20%, the VEStA company - 19%. This is a standard situation for the Russian market (as per the total contributions of all the companies analysed by us, this index makes up 17%, the first 15 companies having this figure equal to 21%). Firstly, far not all the owners are insuring their liability and, secondly, the insurance of a motor car itself is for the present strongly shifted to the part of motor cars in the highest price category. A gradual change of the situation should be expected: the ratio of the motor third party insurance contributions to the "Autocasco" contributions will be shifting from the existing 1 : 4 to the "classic" 1 : 2 (if the car park will be significantly involved in the insurance, these two sectors become, as a matter of fact, symmetrical, but the "Autocasco" rate should be about twice as high as the result of high-jacking and single car accidents). Moreover, the contributions in these risk insurance sectors can be equal considering an introduction of a compulsory insurance of the motor car owner's liability.

Price wars in the motor car insurance sector

As we have said, the motor car insurance sector is the most competitive segment of the Russian insurance market. This statement is well illustrated by Table 3. The leaders available in the market are going ahead and have considerably broken away from the rest of the companies traditionally operating in the motor car insurance sector, and there is a great number of "strong" companies of the "second row" possessing highly sizeable indices of one order as to the Russian standards. Thus, among the companies analysed by us, 26 insurers are collecting RUR10 to 40 million as insurance contributions in the motor car insurance sector, the index of the 15th company being only twice as high as that of the 30th company (one would think that this index in the not-less-competitive VMI field makes up 2.4 times, the corporate property insurance exceeding it by 9.3 times).

A high competitiveness in the motor car insurance market and lack of their own permanent niches possessed by the majority of companies leads, naturally enough, to "price wars". As a result, the rates in the motor car insurance sector, the insured amount being identical and, in a layman's mind the insurance conditions being similar, can differ in times. Thus, the AGO insurance policy price with the liability limit of $10 thousand for the VAZ-21093 motor car and a driver with a solid length of driving experience can fluctuate from $80 in the "Neftepolis" company, $95 in the MAKS company, $100 in the "Renaissance Strakhovaniye"groups, the NASTA company and the VEStA, the "Sibir" companies to practically up to $200 in the ROSNO and "Spasskiye Vorota" companies. Surprisingly, but the poor profitability of the motor car insurance depends not very much on the rates (see Table 3). The thing is that the rate reductions are often not of long duration in the companies and are directed toward short-term advertising campaign for attracting more customers (thus, the low payment level in the"Neftepolis" company, the rates being the lowest ones, is connected with the initial access to the motor car insurance market). In those cases when it is supported by the financial power of the company or its founders as well as by the reinsurance, price "dumping" is absolutely logical. As an example, the "Ingosstrakh" company can be mentioned reducing the rates last year to attract customers and, by the end of the year, having improved its statistics, introduced the differentiation of the customers and increased sharply the policy value for the select clients' groups. Such a market policy is typical also for the ROSNO company. Reducing the rates, the "Neftepolis" company and the "Sibir" company are backed up now by the "Rosneft" and the "Slavneft" oil companies, respectively. It is a great comfort that the number of cases of unreasonable underrating not supported in this or that way are diminishing. True, another problem is assuming a tremendous scale - introducing limitations in the policies undisclosed to the clients. Thus, when buying a cheap insurance police, not all the policy holders know that the liability limit indicated there is an aggregate one, i.e. the first insured loss taking place, it is reduced by a value of the damage paid (naturally, the price of such a policy is objectively lower than that of a policy with a fixed liability limit). There are many contrivances: underestimation of the size of the damage caused, co-operation with "secondquality" technical centres, failure to mention important provisions. A recent real example. A client of one of the "dumping" companies has not received any compensation for damage on ordinary statutory grounds: at night, the top of his car was struck by snow but it was indicated in the application for concluding an insurance contract that the car would be in the garage during night time. Everything would be all right but the client had been assured that this limitation applied only to the "high-jacking" risk (which is quite logical). These are harmless tricks which enable a number of companies to reduce rates significantly.

Table 3 Figures of companies in motor insurance, 2000

^* basical limit of liability for VAZ-21093 - $ 10 000; facts got by anonymous interrogation of companies
^** in company "Center Broker"
^*** limit of liability - 200 RUR thnd
^**** insurance only corporate bodies
^***** value is $ 90 for 50% limit of property and life insurance

Fluctuations of low profitability

The medium payment level of the companies leading in the motor car insurance sector is 40% to 60%. The highest level (66%) was demonstrated by the "Rosgosstrakh-Saint- Petersburg" company really offering one of the lowest rates on the market of Saint- Petersburg, being followed by the PSK and ROSNO companies (62%). The lowest rate was shown by the SKM and "Neftepolis" companies (1% and 4%, respectively). As for the personal insurance sector, it is not worth speaking about a "medium" low profitability level of the companies, as much as their specialisation (see Table 4). The greatest payments are in the VMI sector where an important part is played by the returnable insurance schemes of the pay for medical services as before, the individual risk insurance is growing in popularity which is more unprofitable than the corporate client's insurance (it is quite evident that if a person has paid a definite sum of money for a VMIpolicy, he/she would try to "compensate" it with all his/her might). Among the leaders, the "Sheksna-M" company has the highest payment level (88%), the lowest one being maintained by the "Energopolis" company (6%) which have increased the volumes of its activities this year substantially. As a whole, the "record-holders" for this index are the "Standard-Reserve" company: contributions are equal to RUR43.9 million, payments equalling to RUR46.4 million, the payment level is 106%; the "Taler" company from Solikamsk (105%); the "Itil" (96%) and "Komestra" (91%) companies, on the one hand, as well as the "Pari" (contributions are equal to RUR 39.5 million, payments equalling RUR0.3 million, the payment level is 1%) and the "General Reserve" (1%, too) companies, on the other hand.

Table 4 Payment level of the companies leading in personal insurance, 2000

In the overseas travel insurance sector, the "standard" low profitability makes up 15% to 45%. Among the companies having large scopes of activities in this sector, considerably lower profitability indices are shown by the "General Reserve" (6%), the "Medexpress" (5%), the "Samara-ROSNO", the "Aini" (both per 4%) and the SKPO (1%) companies, these figures being significantly higher with the ROSNO (77%) and the "Yakor" (73%) companies. In the accident insurance sector, the payment level makes up a value less than 1% with the "Mezhregiongarant", the "General Reserve", "Yakor", the National Insurance League, the "Neftepolis" and the "Russkiy mir" companies, exceeding a 50% level with the"Astro-Volga" (59%), the "Moskva" (60%), the "Ingosstrakh" (109%) and the "Nasha Nadezhda" from Nizhni Novgorod (1,765%: contributions equal RUR1 million, payments equal RUR17.8 million!).

Profitable insurance

For property risk insurance and risks connected with the third party insurance, a low payment level is typical. Thus, among the ten companies leading in the cargo insurance sector, the payments of seven companies do not exceed 1% of the contributions, the "RESO-Garantiya" company paying 1.4%; and only two companies - the "Ingosstrakh" and the "Ingosstrakh-Rossiya" - are achieving an acceptable level of 10.8% and 17.8%, respectively (see Table 5). Among the larger companies, a level nearing the "normal" 10 per cent was shown by the "Alma", the VSK, the "Pari" companies, more than 20% - by the "Avikos" and the Russkiy Strakhovoy Centre companies, 37% - by the "Inkasstrakh" company, 47% - by the ROSNO company, and 48% - by the "Progress-Neva" company. For all that, 14 insurance companies (out of 83 companies analysed), having collected more than RUR1 million in the cargo insurance sector, have not made any payments in 2000 at all. The largest of them are the "Surgutneftegaz", the "Askorales", the SKM, the "Aini", the NASTA Group companies. According to the estimated data, 40% to 45% of the companies engaged in the cargo insurance business have not made any payments, the payment level in 20% to 25% of the companies did not exceed 1%.

Table 5 Payment level of the companies leading in property insurance, 2000

The situation is somewhat better in the corporate fire risks insurance sector: about 15% of the companies operating on the market have not made any payments at all. Approximately this number of companies have paid less than 1% of the funds collected. The least payments have been demonstrated by the leaders - the National Insurance Group, the "Neftepolis", the PSK, the "Interros-Soglasiye", the "Huta-Strakhovaniye", the "Yakor", the NASTA Group companies. No payments in this sector have been made by the NESO, the "Megaruss-D", the "Admiral" companies. Having sizeable scopes of activities, the highest payments (20% to 40% of the contributions) have been effected by the "RESO-Garantiya" (compensation for damages to the "Akrichin" Co.), the SKM, the "Ingosstrakh" (explosion and fire at the Sayanski Aluminium Works, fire at the Central Department Store of Novosibirsk etc.), the "Surgutnefregaz", the "Ariadna" and the "Sibir" companies.

As for the other insurance sectors, only separate payments have been made by the organisations. In the water transport insurance sector, the "Ingosstrakh" company (payments are equal to RUR349.8 million, payment level is 59%), the "Rosgosstrakh" system (RUR62.9 million, 130%), the "Lukoil" (RUR19.8 million, 19%) and the "Piramida" (RUR13.4 million, 1420%) companies are leading in the payments made. The largest payments have been effected for the following accidents: damage of the main propulsion engine and rescue of the "Yiannis" motor vessel ($749,000; the "Ingosstrakh" company), rescue operations with a floating dock uncoupled from a ship convoy running into heavy weather ($1,023,000), loss of the "Ryazan" dry-cargo ship because of the cargo displacement ($500,000; both cases - the "Rosgosstrakh - Far East") and a break-down of the propeller shaft of a dry-cargo ship of the Murmansk steamship line (RUR11,850,000; the "Lukoil" company). The highest payment level is in the aviation risk insurance sector (the "RESO-Garantiya", the ROSNO and the "Moskva" companies). In 2000, substantial payments (RUR6 to 7 million) have been effected by the "Avikos" and "Ingosstrakh" companies. As always, the maximum single payment rate is in the aerospace risk insurance sector where the compensation paid by the "Megaruss-D" company for damages connected with a break-down of the "Cyclone-3" carrier rocket made up $2.5 million. In the construction and erection & assembly risk insurance sector, real payments have been made in 2000 only by the "Ingosstrakh" (payment level is 102%, payments are equal to RUR48.8 million; the majority of them is connected with the damages of the "Tsarev Sad" business-centre), the "Gefest" (10%, RUR13 million; insured losses during the construction of the third Moscow inner-city highway ring) companies and the Russkaya Strakhovaya Company (190%, RUR5 million; damages due to a hurricane of a fibre-optics communication line under construction in Chita Region).

But in 2000 the "record-holder" in the insurance non-payment sphere has been the corporate liability insurance, the latter being a source of higher hazards where the payments of the only company ("Surgutnefregaz") equalled the value of its contributions: RUR 43 million. RUR2 million have been paid by the "Lukoil" company. The payments of the rest of the insurers in this insurance sector did not exceed RUR400,000 in 2000.

The leaders in action

The Tables 6 through 10 give indices of the insurance companies leading in the insurance contribution increment sphere on the most developed insurance market segments. When preparing these tables, we considered only those companies which had filled in our questionnaires as for the of 1999' and 2000' results. Besides, Table 6 contains some "incorrectness" not affecting the picture of the insurance market development in general, though. The fact of the matter is that in 1999 a number of companies included the AGO into the motor car insurance indices while another number of them did not do so.

Table 6 Companies with better dynamics in motor insurance, 2000

Table 7 Companies with better dynamics in voluntary medical insurance, 2000

Table 8 Companies with better dynamics in cargo insurance, 2000

Table 9 Companies with better and worst dynamics in property insurance of the corporate bodies (from fire and accompany risks), 2000

Table 10 Companies with better dynamics in building and property insurance of the physical bodies, 2000

The "Ingosstrakh" and the "RESO-Garantiya" companies became members of a group of leaders who increased the scopes of activities in all the insurance market segments marked out. A positive dynamics is observed also in all the insurance activity sectors with the VSK and the "Ingosstrakh-Rossiya" companies but as for the VMI sphere, in spite of a significant contribution increment (by RUR 34 million and RUR20 million, respectively), they could not manage to become members of 15 companies with the most dynamic development. A sizeable increase of the indices of the ROSNO company in the motor car insurance sector, the VMI sector and the corporate property insurance field was taking place against a background of reducing activity in the insurance of real estate and individual property insurance sector (in 2000, the contribution in this sphere reduced by about RUR50 million against 1999) and cargo insurance sector (by RUR42 million). The VEStA company has good dynamics in all the market segments, except the corporate property fire insurance and concomitant risks insurance field (minus RUR12 million). An similar situation is in the NASTA Group, being a member of the leading companies in all the positions, except the cargo insurance sector (the 17th place) and with the "AIG Rossiya" company leading also in all the sectors, except individual property insurance sector. The number of the companies most dynamically developing in all the market segments includes also the "Interros-Soglasiye", the "Neftepolis", the PSK companies leading as per the increase in all the sectors, except individual property insurance sphere. The "Energogarant" company is diversifying its activities, the indices having grown in all the insurance market segments but one - corporate property insurance (here, the contributions reduced by RUR261 million). Among regional companies, the best "multi-sector" increment in the risk insurance fields was achieved by the "Russkiy mir" (Saint-Petersburg) and the "Sibir" (Nizhnevartovsk) companies.

Separately, companies should be marked out which have significantly increased or decreased their indices in specific insurance activity sectors. In the motor car insurance, these are the National Insurance League (annual contribution increase is by 5.1 times and a shift from the 12th to the 7th place), the "Sibir" (by 6.1 times and a shift from the 28th to the 14th place), the "Geopolis" (by 226 times), the "Russkiy mir" and the "Neftepolis" companies, on the one hand, and the "Omsk-ASKO" (a fall from the 17th to the 38th place) and the "Priroda" companies (a fall from the 18th to the 39th place), on the other hand. In the medical insurance sector, an "upward flight" of the "Medved LK", the "Sibir", the "Energopolis", the "Priroda" companies and a "fall" of the National Insurance Group (minus RUR5.4 million). In 2000, the "Pari" company was staking on the development of the cargo insurance sector but the greatest increments have been achieved by the "Interros-Soglasiye", the "Progress- Garant" and the "Lukoil" (in absolute terms) and the "Neftepolis" and the "Energogarant" (in relative terms) captive companies. The ROSNO, the "Priroda" companies and the Stolichnoye Insurance Society have reduced the contributions by more than RUR10 million. As for contribution increments in the individual property insurance sector, the "Rosgosstrakh" system, the"Progress-Garant" company and the NASTA Group are leading.

The more good and versatile insurance sectors - the better

Table 11 describes insurance activity sectors with the most dynamic development in 2000. If the results obtained would be compared with those forecasts which the companies had made at the beginning of 2000 (see Bulletin No. 2, 2000) one could see that these companies were wrong when forecasting the insurance sectors, most prospective for them in 2000. One year ago, 33% of companies held that their enterprise's property insurance sectors would be developing most dynamically in 2000. Then, this sector was the first to be mentioned in a table of the most prospective ones. But summing up, the dynamics leadership was won by the VMI-sphere: namely, this insurance sector was attributed by 42% of companies having filled in our questionnaire to the insurance activity sectors most dynamically developed by them in 2000. Furthermore, popular sectors also follow - the motor car insurance sector quite predictably (35% actually against 26% as forecast) and the accident insurance (25% against 6%) and motor car owner's liability insurance (23% against 6%) sectors quite unexpected a year ago. The expectations that the cargo insurance field (really, this sector was one of the most dynamic with 22% of companies, the forecast equalling to 8%), the liability insurance sector of enterprises being a source of higher hazards (13% against 8%) and the construction and erection & assembly risk insurance sector (11% against 0%) would develop most dynamically turned out to be underestimated. The expectations of how the life insurance, corporate property and liability sectors would develop were somewhat overestimated.

Table 11 The most dinamic types of insurance in 2000^*

^* following interrogation of insurers

As a whole, the growth of the variety of insurance services should be underlined. The increasing number of companies name rather exotic sectors as the most dynamically developing ones which were too early to speak about in 1999. These are the professional liability (the "Rosgosstrakh-Podmoskoviye" company), appraiser's/surveyor's (the "Admiral", "Informstrakh" companies), auditor's, notary's public and realtor's (the "Informstrakh" company) liability, the organisational liability for using the atomic energy (the VSK company), liability insurance of real estate operators (the "Progress-Neva" company), export credit insurance (the 'Ingosstrakh" company), title insurance (the"Informstrakh" company), electronic equipment insurance (the "Inkasstrakh" company) sectors and many others.

Nevertheless, in spite of all the development, the scopes of activities in all these insurance sectors remain negligible. As for the insurance contributions, the leaders are still the same classical insurance market segments. According to the data collected by us, the largest contributions fall on the corporate property fire and concomitant risk insurance (in our sampling of companies: 26% of the risk insurance sector contributions), the VMI (17.2%), the cargo insurance (12.2%) and motor car insurance (9.7%) sectors. The distribution of other insurance activity sectors as for the risk insurance contributions looks as follows: individual property insurance (6.6%), accident insurance (4.1), the hazardous enterprise liability insurance (4.0%), water transport insurance (3.2%), the construction and erection & assembly risk insurance (2.4%), the aviation risk insurance (2.3%), the aerospace risk insurance (1.9%), the overseas travel insurance (1.2%) sectors. All the remaining insurance activity sectors cover 9.2% of the insurance contributions.

According to insurer polls, they consider the most perspective for themselves VMI, the motor car insurance, the enterprise property and liability insurance sectors in 2000 (see Table 12). As compared with the polling one year ago, the expectations of the VMI (at present, the companies are planning to develop not only the corporate medical insurance but the individual one as well) and liability & responsibility insurance (of a civil, car owner's, professional, hazardous character) development have significantly grown. The insurance against all construction and erection & assembly risks sector has appeared in the table. The list of the insurance activity sectors named by the companies has considerably expanded. Whereas the insurers have named 15 sectors a year ago, the number of the latter is 24 now. Among the sectors not included into Table 13 should be mentioned the following ones: the privileged insurance of building (its development is considered to be the most prospective by the "Inkasstrakh" company and the National Insurance Group), the mortgage insurance (the "Inkasstrakh", the PSK companies), the pay-as-you-go children insurance (the "Neftepolis", the "Region" companies), the water transport and ship-owner's insurance (the "Avikos", the "Aini" companies), the aviation risk insurance (the "Avikos", the "Surgutneftegaz" companies), the drilling & blasting operation insurance and the loss-ofprofits insurance (the "Neftepolis" company), the electronic equipment insurance (the "Inkasstrakh" company), the responsibility for the quality of products, works, services (the products liability) insurance (the "Progress-Neva" company), the beyond-the-domicile VMI (the Insurance Company of the Law Protective Bodies) sectors. The "Ingosstrakh" company is planning to carry out a diversification of its portfolio in 2001, and the specialists of the SKM company of Magnitogorsk wrote in the questionnaire that they hoped that all the sectors of the insurance activity would be developing, without any exception.

Table 12 The most perspective types of insurance^*

^* following interrogation of insurers