24.4% of Spaniards have access to a doctor through private insurance, a proportion that rises above 30% in communities such as Madrid, Ceuta, Melilla and Catalonia, while the regions with the lowest penetration of these insurance would be Navarra (10.79%), Cantabria (12.87%) and Extremadura (15.34%), as stated in the Social Report of Insurance 2021 presented this Thursday by the employers of the insurance sector Unespa.
The report states that the people who have insurance for the provision of health services in Spain are “of all ages, although the population segments from 0 to 20 years old and from 41 to 50 years old reach proportions above 20% and two million insured persons; specifically, 21% among the youngest population and 20% among people between 41 and 50 years old.
During the presentation, the president of Unespa, Pilar González de Frutos, highlighted that the objective of this social report is to “record” what insurance does for society and highlighted that, in this edition, the content has been divided into three pillars, following the acronym ASG that summarizes the criteria for a sustainable transition: environmental, social and governance.
In social matters, beyond highlighting the activity of health insurance, González de Frutos has pointed out the “vocation” of insurers to “protect people and their assets”. In this sense, he has valued the role of insurance in complementary savings for retirement and has indicated that, at the end of 2021, the sector “watched over” 253,000 million euros through products such as pension plans, life annuities , dependency insurance or ‘unit linked’ insurance.
The employers’ association also highlights in its report that life insurance compensated 67,000 deaths for which it paid 1,297 million euros in 2021. The highest proportion of death insurance is registered in Andalusia, with 62.47% of the insured population with a product of these characteristics, followed by Aragon (34.43%), Asturias (64.64%) and the Balearic Islands (21.87%).
As for property insurance for homes and businesses, the sector dealt with 6.41 million mishaps related to fires, water damage or glass breakage, among others, and made payments amounting to 2,552 million euros.
NEARLY 300 MILLION EUROS FOR FILOMENA
Regarding the relationship between environmental sustainability and insurance, González de Frutos highlighted that the Spanish insurance sector is a “reference” thanks to its coverage of weather risks, also taking into account the collaboration of private activity with the Compensation Consortium Insurance (CCS), of a public nature.
With regard to this chapter, Unespa highlights that the action of insurers in protecting assets against weather phenomena is “remarkable”, as is the case of the Filomena storm that occurred in early 2021 and for which entities insurers have had to disburse close to 300 million euros last year.
Likewise, it has highlighted the role of agricultural insurance that protects crops and livestock herds against phenomena such as droughts, floods, animal diseases or damage to facilities caused by time, as well as the usual incidents of environmental civil liability attended for the insurance.
In this regard, González de Frutos has pointed out that the usual image of environmental damage derived from economic activity is that of an oil tanker that pollutes the coasts, but that in reality they are “much more everyday cases”, such as spills in commercial establishments and that require full repair work.
SUSTAINABLE INVESTMENT
As a “reference” institutional investor, especially in the fixed income markets, González de Frutos has highlighted that currently, 76% of the sector takes ESG criteria into consideration in the configuration of their investment portfolio, while 33% % of the entities that sell savings products would already have a product on the market that promotes environmental or social characteristics, according to the community regulations on sustainability.
In this sense, he recalled that the regulatory framework to develop sustainable investment, both for the insurance sector and for the economy, “is still in the making”, so there is still no taxonomy “that says what is sustainable” .
The Unespa report also includes car insurance activity. Specifically, it highlights that at the end of 2020 there were 674,000 hybrid or electric vehicles circulating, 20% compared to 2019 and 93% more than in 2018.
González de Frutos has also stated that each year the insurance company repairs four million vehicles “meeting sustainability criteria” and that changes are taking place in the mobility model, with new ways of getting around.
The president of Unespa has conveyed that the insurance market already has products to cover the risks of these forms of personal mobility, both linked to the driver and the vehicle.
Asked about a possible compulsory insurance, she stated that the sector is preparing and is working with the General Directorate of Insurance to establish what type of insurance would be appropriate for these new vehicles, although she has been in favor of not including it within the regulation of automobile insurance as being “probably excessive” for the risks involved.
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