Well positioned in Austria and CEE

Providing first-class service to almost 16 million customers in Austria and Central Europe is the basis for the success and future potential of the UNIQA Group. While we are traditionally firmly anchored in our home market of Austria, we are pursuing a course of consistent growth in CEE. The integration of the former AXA companies in Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic considerably strengthened our market position in this promising region last year in ­particular.

Austria: strong brand, strong position

We have been operating our insurance business in our home market of Austria for more than 200 years. With a market share of around 21 per cent, we are now the second-largest Austrian insurance company, and rank first in the health insurance segment. We support 3.7 million customers in Austria, either directly or through our banking and sales partner, Raiffeisen.

The key factors in our healthy market position are innovative products, a powerful sales force and the firmly established UNIQA and Raiffeisen brands. Many years of solid economic development and a prudent regulator also show good prospects for the future. This is because there is still potential in the Austrian insurance market: Austrians currently spend €2,020 on average on insurance each year. This is still relatively low compared with other western European countries, especially given the high standard of living in Austria.

CEE: significant catch-up potential in insurance density

Insurance expenditure in Central and Eastern Europe is currently still well below this level. With an average annual premium of €231 per capita, CEE contributes a total of around 40 per cent to UNIQA Group premiums following the integration of the AXA companies in Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Yet the region is catching up: the average premium per capita is already around €410 in the more developed Central European insurance markets of Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary, which we have defined as our second core market, and this trend is on the rise.

For UNIQA this opens up attractive potential: with around 12.1 million people, three quarters of our customers already live in CEE. This region, which is home to around 155 million people, has been experiencing a remarkable economic upswing for years. Although Covid-19 also caused a noticeable economic slump here last year as well, the performance of the insurance markets in the region overall was largely stable and able to pick up considerable momentum again in the course of 2021. In the long term, we expect – despite all the challenges in this region – a continuous increase in insurance density in the coming decades.

This is because with growing prosperity, insurance for apartments and homes as well as personal protection products, such as accident and health insurance, are gaining more ground in addition to motor vehicle liability insurance, which traditionally represents the largest volume in CEE.

In order to exploit this growth potential, we are also relying on a strong sales force and on our well-established partnership with Raiffeisen in CEE, with the Addiko Group in the Balkans, and mBank in Poland.

CEE: a region with major growth potential

Insurance spending per person and year in €