We kindly inform you that we have launched a system of registration for the 2nd Polish Insurance Association Congress, which will take place on 7-8 May 2014 in the Sheraton Hotel in Sopot. We invite you to register at:
The main focus of the event will be “Challenges for contemporary insurance – insurance capacity, investments, supervision”. The Congress will be opened by: Andrzej Jakubiak – President of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority.
Participation in the Congress has been confirmed by:
- Prof. Mr Karel Van Hulle – former director for insurance and pension in the European Commission,
- Ms Therese Vaughan – former President of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners,
- Michaela Koller – Director, Insurance Europe,
- Sławomir Neumann – Minister of Health
- Krzysztof Kalicki – President of the Board of Directors, Deutsche Bank Polska.
You are welcome to register!
Jan Grzegorz Prądzyński, CEO of the Polish Insurance Association, was appointed to the Insurance Europe Strategic Committee. The current term of office in the Committee falls for the years 2013–2016.
The Insurance Europe Strategic Committee is a body issuing opinions on priority courses of action and indicating main objectives for the Insurance Europe organisation. Supervisory board constitutes its counterpart in commercial law companies.
Jan Grzegorz Prądzyński is the first Pole to sit on the Insurance Europe Strategic Committee. Members of the Committee include representatives of ten insurance federations from the largest European countries and five persons representing other European insurance organisations. The President of Insurance Europe Sergio Balbinot, Group Chief Insurance Officer, Generali Group, Italy, directly manages the work of the Committee.
Insurance Europe is an European organisation consisting of insurance federations from thirty four countries. The organisation with its registered office in Brussels represents national federations before the most important bodies in the European Union. It also performs actions aiming at raising insurance awareness and promoting insurance. PIU has been a member of Insurance Europe since 1998.
The Polish Insurance Association approved the recommendation of good information practices regarding policies with the insurance capital fund (icf). Owing to the recommendation, customers will obtain more clear information about products with the use of which they intend to allocate savings. In comparison with the initial version of the recommendation which was presented by PIU in April 2013, some provisions were supplemented or specified:
- Data Sheet was explicitly defined as an information document and not a part of an insurance contract;
- The risk of losing all funds was emphasised;
- Quota determination of fees while performing simulations of insurance history was introduced;
In the case of simulations, it was highlighted that the actual insurance history may be different from exemplary calculations.
Product Data Sheet remains the most important part of the recommendation from the customer’s perspective. The recommendation requires that each customer considering insurance with icf is provided with the data sheet. The Product Data Sheet needs to state:
- Information on all fees connected with the service; Particular names of fees will be identical at each insurance company where this recommendation applies;
- Information on the level of risk connected with an investment;
- Three variants of insurance history (basic variant, reduced profitability variant and increased profitability variant).
— I would like to remind you that according to the recommendation, it is unacceptable to use marketing jargon or insurance terminology in the Product Data Sheet — reminds Jan Grzegorz Prądzyński, CEO at PIU. Representatives of insurance community and organisations protecting consumers had the possibility to submit their remarks to the draft during the last few months. The document was supplemented with proposals from the Ministry of Finance, the Polish Financial Supervision Authority, the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, the Polish Insurance Ombudsman, and the Polish Bank Association.
Among many postulates regarding the Product Data Sheet, there were multiple proposals to reduce its volume. — At the same time, we were requested to add new elements to the Data Sheet. For obvious reasons, these two demands are impossible to meet simultaneously. Thus, we opted for leaving a few-page volume, while including the largest possible amount of necessary information — explains Marcin Łuczyński, Member of the Management Board of PIU.
At the latest meeting of PIU with PFSA, it was agreed that on 1 May 2014, the text of the recommendation and a list of insurers applying it is going to be published on the PFSA website. — I am convinced that companies offering products with icf will accede to the recommendation. However, the deadline for adjustments is exceptionally ambitious. Insurance companies which carry out sales through a large number of external partners will be faced with the most difficult task. However, we must not forget about the most important thing — the recommendation is open and each entity may accede to it at any time. Even if the deadline of 1 May 2014 is impossible to meet by any of the insurers, they will simply implement the recommendation at a later date. It is important for a given insurer to declare that they want to accede to it — says Jan Grzegorz Prądzyński.
Within the next few weeks, the Chairman of the PFSA will issue a letter to insurance companies expressing his support for the PIU recommendation. The letter is also going to include information that compliance with the recommendation will positively influence the BION (Supervisory Review and Assessment). — Acknowledging the PIU recommendation as an assessment criterion for insurance companies shows its significance and fundamental role for customers of insurance companies — believes Marcin Łuczyński.
Also Gabriel Bernardino, Chairman of the EIOPA (European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority) requested PIU to provide him with materials regarding the recommendation. During his recent visit to Poland, he was interested in the initiatives of the Polish market with respect to good practices in the bancassurance market and icf. — We are pleased that EIOPA is interested in our projects. I hope that our work proves to be helpful while working on different kinds of European regulations connected with insurance — states Jan Grzegorz Prądzyński.
Sample Product Data Sheet
Presentation on recommendation
Full text of recommendation
156 mandatory and compulsory insurances* are provided for in Polish laws and international laws applicable to Poland. Moreover, the insurance-related legal acts are so unimaginably chaotic that it took three months for the experts to determine the number of compulsory insurances. As a result of their efforts, PIU may present the first study on mandatory insurance in Poland which is of such a comprehensive nature.
The report entitled “The Legal Status of Mandatory Insurance in Poland” [“Stan prawny ubezpieczeń obowiązkowych w Polsce”] was contracted by the Polish Insurance Association to the Insurance Law Department of the Nicolas Copernicus University of Toruń. The work was managed by one of Poland’s most outstanding experts in civil law, Professor Eugeniusz Kowalewski. This is the first, so elaborate, study in this filed on the market. The publication was presented for the first time today, at a conference convened by PIU, entitled “The role of insurance in national economy and business development”. Patronage over the conference was taken by the Ministry of Economy as well as the Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Economy Janusz Piechociński. The authors of the report emphasize that Poland is in the European lead when it comes to countries with the largest number of mandatory insurances. It is France that has the greatest number – over 200 types of mandatory policies. ‘Most of us, when asked about mandatory insurance, would refer only to the third party liability motor insurance policies. Some would also add the obligatory insurance for travel agents. However, it turns out that nearly 160 types of activity are based on insurance, and could not be performed without it,’ says Jan Grzegorz Prądzyński, PIU President.
The authors of the Report believe that the greatest problem related to mandatory insurance is the legislative chaos. The best proof to support this claim is the fact that, so far, no similar analysis was made. ‘In fact no one has so far been in a position to answer the question of how many mandatory kinds of insurance exist in Poland. Unfortunately, the legislative process is characterised by enormous arbitrariness and confusion. To this extent that there are regulations stipulating the necessity to be insured without identifying the sum insured. Additionally, the trouble is that a large portion of the regulations originates outside the Ministry of Finance which takes great care of the logics and order in the insurance laws,’ emphasizes Jan Grzegorz Prądzyński.
Today, insurance law experts are commonly convinced that there are too many mandatory insurances in Poland. ‘Not every type of activity requires a mandatory insurance and not for every type of activity a compulsory insurance policy is the best form of security. Additionally, there is no legislative control over the insurance. They are dispersed. In fact, the list of mandatory insurances is continuously expanded. In recent year we have seen an increasing number of mandatory insurances in addition to the third party liability cover, e.g. various types of guarantees,’ says Jan Grzegorz Prądzyński.
Polish insurers paid PLN 9.87bn worth of claims and payments in Q1 2013 to clients and the injured. This is 7.3 per cent more than last year.
Key figures:
• third party liability insurance – 269 thousand claims and benefits paid to the overall amount of PLN 1.36bn.
• comprehensive insurance – 180 thousand claims paid to the overall amount of nearly PLN 0.9bn
• the gross written premium in third party liability insurance was PLN 2bn (a drop by 4.58 per cent)
• the gross written premium in comprehensive insurance was PLN 1.36bn (a drop by 7.7 per cent)
PIU Comment:
A tendency can be seen on the third party liability insurance market to an increasing average payment and a decreasing number of damage occurrences. Consequently, the insurers’ burdens under the third party liability insurance are on the increase despite the diminishing number of collisions and accidents reported. In the case of comprehensive insurance, the number of damage incidents has gone down, and so has the value of claims paid, but the number of damage occurrences has dropped to a greater extent than the amounts paid.
The technical result on comprehensive insurance was PLN 120bn after Q1 2013 and it was 2% better than a year ago The technical result on third party liability insurance was PLN 59.5M, compared to PLN 22.4M a year ago. ‘We finished the first quarter of 2012 with a positive technical result for third party liability insurance as well, but after 12 months, the market recorded a loss of PLN 427M. Today, it is hard to anticipate the situation after 2013, but the third party liability market is certainly still deeply imbalanced, mostly due to the unpredictability of the personal damage,’ says Jan Grzegorz Prądzyński, PIU President.
Property insurance market (exclusive of motor insurances)
Key figures:
• the number of insurances against damage caused by natural disasters dropped compared to Q1 of 2012 by 2.6%, to the amount of 7.68M, but it is largely triggered by a reduced number of mandatory insurance of agricultural buildings (decreasing number of farms)
PIU Comment:
The first quarter of 2013 (unlike the corresponding period of 2012) brought no substantial damage related to the insurance of crops. Also, no significant damage was recorded in connection with industrial or transportation damage. ‘It seems that the data for quarters 2 and 3 are going to be of key importance for the results from the property market this year, as this will be the time which will show the impact of natural disasters this year on the results accomplished by the insurers. So far, there are no indications of extraordinary costs, and let us hope that the situation will remain unchanged in the subsequent months,’ says Jan Grzegorz Prądzyński.
Life insurance market
Key figures:
• Claims and benefits from all life insurances amounted to PLN 6.5bn (an increase by 10.8%)
• Payments from unit-linked products increased by 30% and reached PLN 1.9bn
PIU Comment:
The premium on the life insurance market was PLN 8bn after Q1 2013, which marks a drop of 14.5%. This was affected by short-term life insurance policies, i.e. products combing the features of a life insurance policy and a bank deposit. This is the group of products for which the decrease in premiums was the highest. In the other product groups, the sum total of collected premiums changed insignificantly. The value of payments made increased compared to last year. In total, out of more than a million payments made, the clients and eligible parties received PLN 6.5bn, over 10% more than a year ago. The value of claims and payments was mostly related to unit-linked insurance: the clients were paid PLN 1.9bn compared to PLN 1.45bn a year ago.
Net financial result
The net profit of life insurers for the first quarter exceeded PLN 616M and was 25% lower than a year ago. ‘It almost entirely results from the results on investing activity deteriorated in comparison with last year. Our premiums did not considerably affect the profits of life insurance companies, as it applied to low-margin products,’ explains Jan Grzegorz Prądzyński.
Better results were recorded by property insurers, who closed the quarter with the profit of PLN 752M, i.e. nearly 35% higher than last year. With respect to the technical result, a significant improvement was seen in group 9, i.e. other property damage (positive result of PLN 128M versus a loss of PLN 159M a year ago).
Both life insurers and property insurers reduced the costs of their business activity. In the first quarter of 2013, they paid nearly PLN 314M in the form of income tax.
We would like to present a brochure entitled “Insurance Figures in 2012”, which contains the most essential information about the Polish insurance market in 2012.
The Polish Insurance Association has made an analysis of data related to crimes revealed in the period of 2001-2011, associated with the activity of insurance companies. For a number of years now, PIU has been involved in regular research on insurance crime. The repetitive nature of the research, coordinated by the Committee for Counteracting Insurance Crime, carried out with the use of well-established methods, ensures the reliability thereof and makes it possible for the findings to be used to evaluate the systemic solutions intended to counteract the threat of insurance crime.
Data Analysis – Insurance Crime in the Period of 2001-2011
The “Rzeczpospolita” daily published another holiday travel supplement, which also refers to the issue of holiday-related insurance. The second page of the supplement contains an elaborate interview with Jan Grzegorz Prądzyński, President of Polish Insurance Association (PIU), concerning holiday insurance. ENJOY YOUR READING.
We are pleased to inform you that the Polish Insurance Association organises yet another edition of the Leon Kozicki Competition for best master’s and bachelor’s theses in the field of insurance. It will be concluded in autumn this year with an official ceremony of presenting awards to authors of the distinguished theses.
We are pleased to inform you that the Polish Insurance Association organises yet another edition of the Leon Kozicki Competition for best master’s and bachelor’s theses in the field of insurance. It will be concluded in autumn this year with an official ceremony of presenting awards to authors of the distinguished theses. We are strongly encouraging master and bachelor degree students to take part in the competition!
Regulations of the competition
Entries stating personal data and residence addresses of the authors should be sent to the head office of the Polish Insurance Association, ul. Wspólna 47/49, 00-684 Warszawa, between 20 January and 30 September 2013. These will be assessed by the Opinion Committee consisting of representatives of the scientific community as well as practitioners from the insurance sector. Three best theses will be selected from all of the sent papers, and their authors will be awarded with prizes.
Diploma theses entered to the competition should be written upon completion of the studies at universities which offer the possibility to obtain master’s or bachelor’s degrees. Qualification of a thesis to the competition is conditional upon presenting opinions of thesis promoters on the sent thesis to us as well as information confirming that university/faculty authorities were notified of the competition.
Apart from the diploma and prestige, winning the competition organised by the Polish Insurance Company involves a consideration in the amount of PLN 5,000. Second place involves a consideration in the amount of PLN 3,000, and the third – PLN 1,500.
Any questions should also be sent to the following e-mail address: pracedyplomowe@piu.org.pl.
We would like to invite you to participate in this year’s editions of Competitions organised by the Polish Insurance Association:
• Leon Kozicki Competition for best theses in the field of insurance;
• PIU Competition for the journalist community.
Leon Kozicki Competition is a chance to win awards for persons who have defended their master’s or bachelor’s thesis in the field of insurance during the previous year. These will be assessed by the Opinion Committee consisting of representatives of the scientific community as well as practitioners from the insurance sector. Three best theses will be selected from all of the sent papers, and their authors will be awarded with prizes. The amount of particular prizes is described in the regulations of the competition.
Prizes in the PIU’s competition for journalists will be awarded already for the 10th time in three categories:
• Debut of the Year,
• Insurance Article/Radio Program of the Year,
• Journalist of the Year.
The prizes, which are awarded each year at the request of the competition jury by the Management Board of PIU, go to journalists for their remarkable contribution to promoting insurance activity and building insurance awareness. Winners of the competition are honoured with diplomas and cash prizes which are described in the regulations.
Regulations of both competitions are available on the PIU website:
Regulations of the Leon Kozicki Competition
Regulations of the Competition for Journalists
You are welcome to participate!
