Lebanon: Aggregate premiums down by 5% to $1.6bn in 2019
Source: Middle East Insurance Review | Jun 2020
The Lebanese insurance industry produced total life and non-life premiums of $1.63bn in 2019, constituting a decrease of 5% from $1.71bn in the previous year, according to a report published by the Economic Research & Analysis Department of Byblos Bank. In comparison, in 2018, the industry grew by 3.6%.
Life premiums accounted for 30.2% of aggregate premiums in 2019, lower than the 31.7% in 2018, while non-life premiums represented 69.8% of the total in 2019 compared to 68.3% in 2018, said the report based on an annual survey of the insurance sector by Al-Bayan magazine.
In real terms, aggregate life and non-life premiums declined by 7.6% in 2019 and by 2.3% in 2018.
The survey showed that the top 10 insurers in Lebanon in 2019 remain unchanged from 2018, although there were shifts in rankings among them (Table 1).
The top five insurers in Lebanon accounted for 36.9% of the combined life and non-life markets in 2019 compared to 36.2% in 2018, while the top 10 companies generated 62.3% of overall premiums in 2019 relative to 62.8% in the previous year.
The insurance penetration rate in Lebanon stood at 2.9% of GDP in 2019 relative to 3.1% of GDP in 2018, while insurance density reached $336 in 2019 compared to $353 in 2018. M