Page 7 - Turkinsurance Digital Magazine

5

Changes in the digital world force

insurance market to change as well

İlhami Koç, CEO of Anadolu Sigorta: “We cannot reflect the increase in claims
costs onto our premiums. In other words, we share our financial income with our

policyholders.”

How do you evaluate the year 2018 for the insurance market ble premiums for customers that agree to receive all services from
and Anadolu Sigorta? special repair shops contracted with our company.

We can say that insurance market was impacted relatively less Of course, everyone needs to make their choices according to their
than other markets by the negative circumstances of our country’s income level; however, we always recommend the most extensive
economy. Total premium production increased by 20.20 percent, coverage options. A policyholder should not worry about anything
reaching 47.7 billion TL. In other words, premium production related to their insurance.
grew as much as the inflation rate.
It is highly important to increase insurance awareness for the
Financially, we can say that companies have 2 main targets; insurance market to make better contributions to Turkish
growth and profitability. Normally, these two targets are not economy. As Anadolu Sigorta, what kind of activities are you
achieved simultaneously; and therefore, companies concentrate on conducting to increase awareness?
one of these two elements while determining their targets. During
2018, we reached the desired results in terms of both growth and Yes, unfortunately insurance awareness has not reached the desired
profitability. levels in Turkey, except for the metropolitan areas. People don’t
even buy the legally compulsory insurance products.
Our overall premium production increased by 22 percent, reaching
5.7 billion TL. Our company grew over market averages during Economic circumstances, particularly the national income per cap-
2018, and our market share increased from 11.76 percent up to ita, are the main reasons behind this fact. Other significant reasons
11.94 percent. In terms of insurance lines, we have reinforced our are the widespread assumption that ‘nothing would happen’ and
leadership in fire and natural forces, motor casco, marine hull, failing to understand the size of risks. Therefore, it is important
marine cargo, general liability and aviation lines. to see risks for what they are, and understand that the probability
of those risks happening is not a long shot for our daily lives. We
Our profitability growth rates are much more remarkable. Our can see that insurance rates have been increasing in areas where
consolidated net profit grew by 61 percent over the same period of big-impact earthquakes or weather events such as hail or floods
previous year, and reached 324.5 million USD. have been experienced. This is mainly due to the fact that people
become aware of those risks. After watching the risks being real-
When we look into previous years, we can see that insurance mar- ized, they begin to worry and buy insurance as a countermeasure.
ket’s growth exceeded the general growth of economy. Serious And when they see that the wounds and financial losses are rapidly
decline in automotive sales in 2018 prevented further growth of relieved by the insurance market, they can place their trust in the
premium production. system. It is not only applicable to big catastrophes such as earth-
quake or climate risks, but for all types of risks. People who see
Auto insurance line, which consists of compulsory traffic and mo- that their neighbors or relatives are compensated by insurance com-
tor casco, accounts for half of total market premiums. Automotive panies after an accident or loss begin to buy insurance themselves.
is one of the sectors that was impacted most by unfavorable cir-
cumstances of the general economy. Therefore, decrease of sales However, increasing awareness is not enough. Enforcement mecha-
in this sector directly prevented further growth of insurance pre- nism should also be set to work efficiently for compulsory insurance
miums. products.

Moreover, consumers tend to avoid buying insurance during fi- How closely Anadolu Sigorta follow-up the digital develop-
nancially challenging terms. Some of them prefer narrow-scope ments in the market? How do you transform your company in
products, while some of them don’t buy insurance at all. this regard?

Due to increasing costs of the automotive sector and increasing in- Changes in the digital world force insurance market to change as
surance premiums, demand for narrow-scope products increased. well. Anadolu Sigorta has allocated a serious amount of resources
For instance, we have two motor casco products named Pert for the digital field. A significant part of our human resources and
Kasko (Scrapped Casco) and Hesaplı Kasko (Economic Casco) to budget is allocated for our technology-related activities.
address this situation. With Pert Casco, we make claims payment
only when a vehicle is scrapped. Remaining costs are covered by We believe that we are the most effective insurance company in
the policyholder. Our Hesaplı Kasko product offers more reasona- using technology in a wide variety of areas ranging from efficient