Insurance Association of Turkey (TSB) has recently held its Ordinary General Assembly Meeting. Chaired by Can Akın Çağlar, President of the Association, the meeting assessed 2018 activities and the agenda of Turkish insurance market.

President Can Akın Çağlar opened the meeting by evaluating the 2018 results of Turkish insurance market and stated as follows:

“I have started the journey to preside over our Association after the General Assembly of 2016, and invited all our stakeholders to join hands with the aim of expanding our market in the General Assembly of 2017. Now we are happy to see that the steps we have taken together under the motto of ‘communication, harmony and innovation’ have begun to yield results. During 2018, our market undertook a total compensation payment of 36 billion TL; standing by our citizens and continuing to contribute to Turkish economy at the same time. Total premium volume of 54.7 billion TL as of year-end equals to 1.36 percent of our national income. Our market’s overall contribution to economy reached 148 billion TL- including the pension funds, total value of which equals to 4.2 percent of the national income. And we also keep working tirelessly towards providing more funds to our economy and increasing the rate of insurance.”

Çağlar also talked about the recent arrangements done within the New Economy Program (YEP) and said: Within the scope of New Economy Program (YEP), there will be significant amendments related to the Individual Pension and Auto-Enrollment systems. Thanks to these new precautions, we believe that we will reach a healthier structure in terms of reaching the desired saving levels. Another change will be the foundation of “Insurance and Pension Regulation and Supervisory Board”, which will be an independent authority to be responsible from regulating and supervising the insurance and pension systems. This has been a long-awaited development by the insurance market. I believe that the market will gain acceleration thanks to this new structure.”

“We have targeted to strengthen our market every step of the way”

Underlining that they conducted several projects and studies which were also supported by the public authority in order to provide rapid solutions for issues on the agenda of Turkish insurance market, Çağlar said: “We have conducted projects by cooperating with the Treasury and public authorities, and continued our cooperation with the judicial system in order to decrease the problems related to market practices. Our main priority for the traffic line was to reduce the number of traffic accidents; and we have made significant progress in our action plan. We have shared our solution proposals for non-life segment, individual pensions and auto-enrollment with the public authority. We have improved our dialogue and communication with all our stakeholders, particularly with distribution lines. Through all these steps, we have aimed to strengthen our market which also works together with us for the same causes.”

Target is to expand the non-bank financial system

Çağlar reminded that the Association organized “Workshop to Determine Strategies for Insurance and Pension Markets” with the aim of determining middle and long term roadmaps for insurance and pension markets. He added:

“When we analyze the functions of insurance and pension markets, we see that they have a very important role for the national economy. And we are aware that we need to take further steps so that our market realizes its true potential. In this respect, we organized the Strategy Determination Workshop with the aim of determining the roadmap and actions that will ensure the development of our market for the next five years. This workshop was attended by public authorities and all stakeholders of insurance and pension markets. Main goals of the workshop were to create a non-traffic agenda for the market, grow with new areas and new products, attract attention to financial insurance products such as bond and credit insurance, increase awareness about participation insurance, prepare our market for the future considering the risks and changes to be brought by technological development and change of generations, improve insurance awareness. And as a result of all the abovementioned targets, we mainly aimed to expand the non-bank financial system. In 2019, we will determine our steps in accordance with the results from the Workshop and focus on getting results.”