January 14, 2022 – Eleven market participants achieved combined ratios of less than 75 percent in 2020. The most profitable was the Cosmos, which spent just 36 percent of revenue on claims and costs. The Volkswohl Bund and the Mecklenburgische have improved particularly strongly. This can be found in the “Industry Monitor 2015-2020: Liability Insurance” from VERS Leipzig.
In 2020, the industry was able to reduce the combined claims/expenses ratio in liability to below 84 percent. However, five of the 50 largest providers wrote actuarial losses of up to 13 cents per premium euro. This is shown by the “Industry Monitor 2015-2020: Liability Insurance”. VERS Leipzig GmbH (Insurance Journal January 11, 2022).
Four market participants from the group of providers with a combined ratio of over 100 percent said goodbye. These include, among others, the R+V General Insurance Ltd (currently 99 after 110.4 percent in the previous year) and the VHV General Insurance Ltd (88.3 after 100.7 percent).
Volkswohl Bund with massive improvement
A strong improvement was achieved Volkswohl Bund Sachversicherung AG, which had been in last place the year before due to some special factors with a rate of over 150 percent (November 19, 2020).
Recently, gross expenses for insurance claims have fallen sharply Annual Report 2020 (PDF, 1.1 MB) by more than 60 percent to less than 5.5 million euros. The premium volume increased by 3.5 percent to 13.9 million. This resulted in a combined ratio of 83.6 percent, which means 24th place.
Mecklenburgische jumps from 47th to third position
This has also improved significantly (from 109.2 to 63.5 percent). Mecklenburg Insurance Company aG This is solely due to the development on the claims side, as can be seen from the Annual Report 2020 (PDF, 2.6 MB).
There it says: “Due to a low loss burden and a positive settlement result in both the private and commercial sectors, gross expenses for insurance claims fell to EUR 8.9 million (previous year: EUR 26.9 million). Apart from that, there were no major loss events to report in the year under review.”
With increasing income (plus 1.3 percent to 40.6 million euros), the claims ratio fell from 67.2 to 21.9 percent. This corresponds to second place (2019: 46th place) of the providers listed in the monitor. In the combined claims/expenses ratio, the club managed to jump from 47th to third place.
Cosmos with the lowest rate
Only those cut better than the Mecklenburgische Cosmos Insurance Ltd and the Axa Insurance Ltd away. Both companies improved by around 20 percentage points. The Cosmos owed the industry top value of 36 percent in particular to the positive claims development, such as that Annual Report 2020 (PDF, 830 KB).
With roughly the same premium volume of around EUR 16.6 million, gross expenses for insurance claims fell by almost three quarters to less than EUR 1.7 million. The claims ratio fell from 36.6 to the best value of less than ten percent. On the other hand, the operating cost ratio increased only comparatively slightly from 22.4 to 26.0 percent.
At Axa, the combined ratio of 57.3 (2019: 77.1) percent consists of a slightly improved operating cost ratio (31.0 after 31.8 percent) and a massively reduced claims ratio of 26.3 (2019: 45.3 ) percent together. The company explains the latter in Annual Report 2020 (PDF, 1.2 MB) among other things with fewer major claims and significantly higher settlement profits.
Other providers with low combined ratios
Combined claims-cost ratios of around 70 percent were also recorded by the Provincial North Brandkasse AG as well as the Continental property insurance company.
Between 70 and 75 percent were also the Huk-Coburg liability support fund for driving officials in Germany aG, the SV Sparkassenversicherung Building Insurance AG, the Mannheim Insurance Company, the Huk-Coburg General Insurance Company, the Concordia Insurance Company aG and the Debeka General Insurance Ltd.
Further study details and procurement options
The “Industry Monitor 2015-2020: Liability Insurance” contains numerous other key figures on the insurance branch as well as data for analyzing existing customers.
The almost 100-page study can be ordered as a PDF version for EUR 803.25 gross including VAT from Maik Entrich by email or by telephone on 0341 24659262.
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