The Accounting and Tax Institute has announced „The Best Annual Report 2010” competition, i.e. the best annual report according to IFRS/IAS for the sixth time. The Polish Insurance Association is a patron of this event.
Only those companies which drew up consolidated financial statements according to IFRS/IAS can participate in the competition. The aim of the competition is to promote annual reports of the biggest use value for shareholders and investors, i.e. reports on the basis of which investment decisions can be made with relatively minimal risk. Each company participating in the competition receives a detailed grade sheet with notes of the jury members whereby it is possible to improve the annual report every year. There has been a new category functioning for 3 years: the best annual report on the Internet. It has given rise to crucial changes in financial reporting on the Internet. The competition’s terms and conditions state in detail the requirements for an annual report to be evaluated. The first criterion of selection is the analysis of an auditor’s opinion about the financial statement audit. Next, each annual report is judged by three teams that evaluate the board’s business activity statement, application of IFRS/UAS and use value . The sum of marks from those teams is maximum 100 points.
The Accounting and Tax Institute is very proud that there are more and more companies participating in the competition and encourages everyone willing to verify the quality of their annual reports. Detailed information can be found on the website of the organizer.
The Car Accident Victims’ Rights Card has been created on the initiative of the Ministry of Justice in cooperation with the Polish Insurance Association. The card is a broad source of knowledge for all those injured in car accidents. It includes, among other things, contact details of rescue services, emergency numbers as well as detailed particular stages of damage and compensation claims after a car accident.
The document will be distributed among non-government organizations dealing with assistance to car accident victims. PIU will also ask insurance agencies to distribute the Card among their clients on the largest possible scale.
Download the Car Accident Victims’ Rights Card
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In the first quarter of this year, non-life insurers paid over PLN 3.4 billion to their clients – as results from the data collected by the Polish Insurance Association. Claims paid of life insurance amounted to almost PLN 5.8 billion. The first quarter of this year was marked by motor vehicle insurance and adjustment of rates to market conditions.
Motor insurance market
Third party liability premiums amounted to almost PLN 2 billion and collision insurance premiums exceeded PLN 1.4 billion. The year on year growth in both cases was 14 % – The growth of about fifteen percent of the collected premiums shows that insurers could no longer accept losses incurred in relation to motor vehicle insurance. They decided to adjust the rates to difficult market conditions. It is obvious that some drivers will not be happy with that decision, but we must remember that insurers are obliged to be able to compensate losses by skillful adjustment of prices to the risk level –Jan Grzegorz Prądzyński, President of the Polish Insurance Association says. In 1Q 2011, insurers paid PLN 1.4 billion for third party liability and PLN 1 billion for collision insurance. These values are similar to those of the previous year. In 1Q 2011, for the first time over a considerable period, we saw the value of the collected premiums increase faster than the value of the compensated losses.
Non-life insurance market
On the non-motor non-life insurance market, the greatest participation of compensation paid are, as usual, insurance related to fire and other elements. In groups of smaller participation, we can observe an increase in compensation in assistance insurances and insurances related to various financial risks. Insurers collected approximately PLN 3 billion from non-motor non-life insurances, about 9 % more than in the previous year.
Life insurance market
We can observe a continuing decrease in premiums collected in Class I on the life insurance market. According to the analyses of the Polish Insurance Association, it is directly connected with the structure of premiums of one of the big insurance companies, and not with the situation on the entire market.
The premium in Class III increased considerably though. – This can be explained by a good situation on the stock exchange, which usually means greater interest in saving by way of locating one’s money in insurance capital funds – Jan Grzegorz Prądzyński says.
At the same time, a big group of clients decided to close out their saving and investment policies and consequently there was a considerable 32% increase in the claims paid value on this account. Altogether, life insurers collected PLN 7.6 billion in 1Q 2011, which is almost the same amount as in the previous year. They paid PLN 5.8 billion, which is 16% less than in the previous year.
Balance on technical account and profit
Thanks to the adjustment of motor vehicle insurance rates to the market conditions, non-life insurers have achieved a positive balance on the technical account (PLN 131.7 million) and a net profit in the amount of PLN 313.6 million for the first time for a number of quarters.
On the other hand, life insurers have recorded a decrease in their balance on the technical account of almost 23% – to the amount of PLN 813 million – and a net profit decrease of 23 % to the amount of PLN 755 million.
The reason for this are lower profits from investments presented by one of the big life insurers.
Results of the insurance market in 1Q 2011 r. – table
The General Meeting of Shareholders of the Polish Insurance Association re-elected Jan Grzegorz Pradzynski President of the Board of the Association. Andrzej Maciazek will remain vice-president and Marcin Luczynski – previous head of finance and taxes of insurance companies – was appointed member of the Board.
– I would like to thank the members of the Association, on behalf of the entire Board, for the trust they placed in us. This is not going to be an easy term of office which relates, among others, to the implementation of Solvency II. However, I am convinced that the Polish insurance market can rest assured being represented by the Polish Insurance Association which is a strong and professional representative and is able to manage difficult tasks – Jan Grzegorz Pradzynski said.
The General Meeting also appointed 11 members of the Audit Committee which performs the function of a Supervisory Board of the Polish Insurance Association. The following persons became members of the Committee: Ryszard Bociong, Marek Czerski, Piotr Dzikiewicz, Maciej Jankowski, Witold Jaworski, Andrzej Klesyk, Zygmunt Kostkiewicz, Piotr Narloch, Jaroslaw Parkot, Ewa Stachura-Kruszewska and Grzegorz Szatkowski.
Members of the Polish Insurance Association, during the General Meeting, granted the vote of approval to all members of the Board and Audit Committee of the previous term of office. The financial report and the business activity report of the Board and Audit Committee were also accepted.
The General Meeting was concluded with a ceremony of awarding commemorative diplomas to the members of the Audit Committee of the Polish Insurance Association in the years 2008-2011. The President of the Polish Insurance Association also awarded the badges “Za Zaslugi dla Ubezpieczen” (For services to insurance) to eleven persons. These were: Mrs Grazyna Golinska, Mrs Magdalena Kaczmarek, Mrs Katarzyna Kasztelan-Przybylska, Mr Piotr Adamczyk, Mr Andrzej Janc, Mr Zbigniew Jeksa, Mr Radoslaw Kaminski, Mr Adam Muziol, Mr Jakub Nawracala, Mr Piotr Szlenk, Mr Paul Villemagne.
Europa Running Team won in the Insurers category in this year’s Accreo Ekiden relay team marathon. Team members: Karolina Wojnarowska, Jacek Podoba, Sławomir Strzałka, Marek Ziółkowski, Michał Staniszewski, Adam Smoliński reached the finish line with the time of 3.10.03.
The second place was awarded to HDI Asekuracja team composed of Robert Phillips, Roman Lesiak, Artur Borkowski, Michał Broniś, Tomasz Michałek, Krzysztof Kozłowicz. HDI time was 3.22.58.
The third place was awarded to Atradius Runners Poland team consisting of the following: Zbigniew Brzozowiec, Marcin Makowski, Makary Olczak, Karolina Suproń, Paweł Szczepankowski, Bartłomiej Mystkowski. Relay time was 3.31.16.
Congratulations to all the awarded teams!
Polish Insurance Association, which is the partner of this year’s Warsaw Marathon awarded the winners with PIU Running Cup 2011 commemorative checkes and gift vouchers for a sports shop, funded by PIU together with Generali.
We invite you to acquaint yourself with the report entitled „Reverse Mortgage – Reverse Mortgage – legal and institutional solutions on the chosen markets” The research has been conducted at the request of the Polish Insurance Association [Polska Izba Ubezpieczeń].
Dear Sirs,
On behalf of Mr Witold Paweł Kalbarczyk, the President of the Health and Accident Insurance Commission of PIU, we would like to invite you to participate in the Public Sitting of Commission which is to take place on 30th May at 12 p.m. in the registered office of PIU at ul. Wspólna 47/49.
The agenda is as follows:
- Summary of actions taken by the Health and Accident Insurance Committee in years 2009, 2010 and to 30th May 2011.
- Summary of the state of works on the legal regulations regarding additional health insurances.
- Questions and discussion.
In accordance with the Regulations of the Works of Commission, Teams and Work Groups of PIU, the public sitting is attended by employees delegated by their employer – an insurance company which is a member of PIU. Entries should be sent via email to the address of the commission secretary, Jakub Owoc, j.owoc@piu.org.pl, not later than two weeks before the day of the sitting, i.e. 16th of May.
Under §8 point 4,5 and 6 of the Regulations of the Works of Commission, Teams and Work Groups of the Polish Insurance Association:
4. The public sitting of Commission takes place at least once a year.
5. The public sitting of the Commission shall be convened by announcing it on the Association website not later than 21 days before the day of the sitting.
6. The right to participate in the public sitting shall be granted to the employee delegated by their employer –an insurance company, a Association member. Entries for participation in the sitting should be sent via email to the address of the commission secretary not later than two weeks before the day of the sitting.
After the analysis of the additional health insurance bill presented by the Ministry of Health, the Polish Insurance Association submitted to the Ministry its own proposal of the bill. According to the Association, the Ministry correctly evaluates the needs of the Polish health system. However, the proposed provisions do not fulfill the assumptions and goals presented in the justification of the bill. The bill of the Polish Insurance Association is based on the same assumptions and goals and the basic differences consist in the manner of fulfillment of these assumptions and goals which is based on providing more precise definitions of a private health insurer and the relationships between the National Health Fund (NFZ), insurers and entities providing services.
The additional health insurance act of the Ministry of Health was to be an opportunity to ‘heal’ the Polish health care system. The development of this solution, which is universally applied throughout Europe, would make it possible to have quick access to health services especially for those who cannot afford commercial health services. According to the Polish Insurance Association, the bill of the Ministry, presented in March, does not fulfill this goal. Eminent experts on law, insurance, social politics and health protection are of the same opinion as the Polish Insurance Association. These are prof. Michał Kulesza, a partner of the Domański Zakrzewski Palinka law office, prof. Tadeusz Szumlicz of the Warsaw School of Economics and Marek Wójcik, an expert on health protection of the Association of Polish Districts. They also believe that the provisions of the act proposed by the Ministry have serious legal and system defects.
– We appreciate the fact that the Ministry of Health has taken steps to regulate the additional health insurance market. However ,the act does not provide for comprehensive solutions and without any changes might become unfavorable to Polish patients and hospitals. That is why we have prepared a bill with our own provisions – said Jan Grzegorz Prądzyński, president of the board of the Polish Insurance Association.
The solutions presented by the Ministry of Health and approved by the Polish Insurance Association include, among others: the opportunity to include occupational health care services in private health insurance and the proposition to finance premiums from company social benefit schemes. The above-mentioned provisions were also included in the bill presented by the Polish Insurance Association.
However, the Association does not approve of the ambiguous definition of additional health insurance and the provisions specifying the role of the National Health Fund in the planned system. The Polish Insurance Association, in its bill, proposed a more precise definition which leaves no doubt about the nature of health insurance and the role of payers in the system. The definition of the Polish Insurance Association also makes it more precise that the additional health insurance might be offered both by life insurers and property insurers.
The bill of the Polish Insurance Association specifies that the National Health Fund is a public payer. It also balances the relationships between the Fund, insurers and service providers who work for private and public taxpayers. According to the Association, the provision of the Ministry of Health which gives the Fund power to control and interfere in contracts between insurers and service providers is contradictory to the passive role of the National Health Fund as a payer. The provisions proposed by the Polish Insurance Association clearly specify mutual relationships of all the participants of the system. The activity of insurers is controlled by relevant institutions (Polish Financial Supervision Authority), the Fund takes care of the performance of contracts on services financed from public funds concluded by the Fund. Health institutions which concluded a contract with the National Health Fund are obliged to regularly provide the Fund with information on patients awaiting health care services; and this is emphasized by both the Ministry of Health and the Polish Insurance Association. Such provisions protect the rights of patients who only use services financed from public funds.
In accordance with the opinion of prof. Michał Kulesza, one of the most valued law authorities in Poland, there are no doubts of constitutional nature as to the implementation of additional, private health insurance in Poland. However, there are serious doubts of legal nature as to certain provisions of the bill of the Ministry.
The additional health insurance bill of the Polish Insurance Association has been submitted to the Ministry of Health. – Additional health insurance is a solution which the Polish health system needs very much. However, in order for patients to have quicker and better access to services, the law must be transparent and precise. I hope that the Ministry of Health is willing to hold a discussion with us and will accept the changes in the provisions proposed by the Polish Insurance Association – said Jan Grzegorz Prądzyński.
Bill of the Polish Insurance Association
Legal opinion no. 1
Legal opinion no. 2
Presentation of the press breakfast
The bill proposed by the Ministry of Health on 4th March concerning additional health insurance might be misleading for insurers as well as health service providers.
Paweł Kalbarczyk
Chairman of the Health and Accident Insurance Commission of the Polish Insurance Association
According to the bill, all life insurance from among accident insurance and sickness insurance could be offered as health insurance. It means that each accident or sickness policy, even if it has nothing to do with the reimbursement of treatment costs or with organizing medical services, could be treated as health insurance. In the Association’s opinion, the current shape of the bill does not give any chances to properly tell the difference between health insurance and other sickness and accident policies. The definition accepted by the Ministry of Health would cause trouble not only to life insurers in creating their product offer but also to tax authorities, if there were a tax relief, because the explicitness of interpretation is especially crucial for these authorities.
In spite of the fact that the phrase „accident or sickness” in the Insurance Activity Act is used to define a type of life insurance, we arrived at a conclusion that the authors of the bill intend to use “health insurance” exclusively for products which include the reimbursement of treatment costs or access to medical services. Such a solution would trigger a situation in which health insurance would be closer, in its nature, to a property policy rather than to a life policy. Another inaccuracy arises here because, in accordance with the Insurance Activity Act, particular groups of property insurance are called “insurance against accident” and “insurance against sickness”, and the bill calls them “accident insurance” and “sickness insurance”. It should not be surprising that shortly after the publication of the bill opinions that the bill does not allow property insurers to offer health products appeared. The fact that shortly after the publication of the bill there were several mutually exclusive opinions in such an important issue proves that it is difficult to guess the real intentions of the definition authors.
In accordance with the manner of creating good law, it should be precisely defined what additional health insurance is. In the opinion of the Polish Insurance Association, the provision which is to define private health insurance and which is to leave no interpretation doubts should have the following form:
additional health insurance – accident or sickness insurance or insurance against an accident or insurance against sickness whose scope might include providing health care for the insured which is provided or financed by an insurance company on the basis specified in the act and occupational health care benefits and other benefits connected with offering, organizing and providing health care benefits.
This manner of definition ensures clear interpretation which is in accordance with the needs of patients and the health protection market. Such definition also triggers a situation in which health insurance might be offered by life and property insurers.
Giving the National Health Fund the possibility to supervise all health service providers, including private and public ones, raises doubts of the Polish Insurance Association. The idea of the act should be to eliminate barriers in contracting by public insurers those health service providers whose equipment and personnel are not fully used. Meanwhile, the bill gives the National Health Fund instruments which trigger a situation in which the state payer will be both the competitor of insurers and the inspector of the agreements between insurers and health service providers.
In the opinion of the Polish Insurance Association, the intention of introducing such solutions by the Ministry of Health was to ensure that patients who do not have private insurance have safe access to benefits financed from public funds. This idea is completely supported by the Polish Insurance Association but the provisions of the act which, according to the authors’ intention, are to protect the rights of patients, have too far-reaching consequences. At the same time, the Association wishes to emphasize that it supports the solutions which allows for no limitation of access to benefits for persons who do not use private insurance. The Polish Insurance Association hopes that the arguments relating to the need to clarify the definition of private health insurance and to change the relations between the National Health Fund, insurers and service providers will be supported by the Ministry of Finance, the Polish Financial Supervision Authority and numerous social partners who see the need to introduce a good act on additional health insurance in the same way as the Polish Insurance Association does.
The Polish Insurance Association believes that the Ministry of Health, as part of public consultation, will take into account the above arguments and will make necessary changes to the bill. The goal of the act is clear for all parties – the reform of the health care system which abolishes limiting medical services for millions of Poles.
We present the initial position of the Polish Insurance Association on the private additional health insurance bill.
It needs to be positively assessed that the Ministry of Health saw the need to legally regulate the private health insurance market in Poland. Several months ago, during a conference on private health insurance organized by the Polish Insurance Association, the insurance community was looking forward to appropriate regulations concerning the above-mentioned insurance. The announcement of such regulations reflected the needs of the Polish health care system.
The additional health insurance bill, presented on 4th March, must still be thoroughly analyzed and that is why the Polish Insurance Association will present its position in more detail towards the end of the next week. However, after having read the bill casually, we might attempt an initial assessment.
We were happy to see the provisions concerning the possibility to offer, as part of additional health insurance contracts concluded by employers, occupational health care benefits. Another positive aspect is the proposal of financing the additional health insurance premiums (apart from the occupational health care benefits) from the employee benefit fund. A promising provision is also the one on tax relief for people paying health insurance premiums but the Minister of Finance will have the final word in this matter and this will be based on the condition of state budget.
Nevertheless, some provisions of the bill are surprising for the Polish Insurance Association. Contrary to the announcement, the bill does not precisely define the notion of additional private health insurance. What is more, the bill assigns the National Health Fund with functions which should not be assigned to a payer but perhaps to the supervisor of the insurance market. The National Health Fund does not perform the function of supervisor and should not do it in the future. We believe that it is simply by mistake that the bill makes it impossible for life insurers, i.e. current market leaders in Poland, to offer additional health insurance.
Within public consultations, we will call for changes whose aim is to create transparent law which enables everybody to receive a better and faster access to health care benefits offered as part of additional private health insurance.
