Slovenian insurance giants achieve exceptional profit gains
Slovenia's largest insurance groups, Triglav and Sava reported a strong growth in net profit for 2024, a reflection of favourable claims development and favourable market conditions.
Triglav Group saw its net profit rise eight-fold to over €131 million despite its total business volume remaining broadly flat, decreasing by 1% to €1.72 billion, CE Report quotes The Slovenia Times.
Meanwhile, Sava Group saw its business volume grow by 14% last year to break the one billion euro mark as net profit rose by 36% to just shy of €88 million in what is a new record. The result was driven by both the insurance service result and the finance result.
Change in health insurance impacts on Triglav business
"In addition to strong results in both insurance and asset management, operations benefited from favourable financial market conditions, relatively favourable claims development and one-off events, particularly in the health segment," Triglav said in its regulatory filing.
The one-off events related to the termination of top-up health insurance in the country resulted in a decline in the health segment but also in the claims incurred.
The group restructured the segment's business model in Slovenia and merged the health insurance subsidiary into the parent company, and strengthened its complementary health insurance business in Slovenia and other markets in the region to post a 37% premium growth.
Consolidated gross written premium rose by 2% to €1.62 billion. If the top-up insurance had not been abolished at the start of 2024, the growth would have been 10%, according to Zavarovalnica Triglav board member Uroš Ivanc.
The Slovenian market accounted for 56% of total written premium. In other markets in the region, premium growth was 9%, while in international markets, "where the group operates primarily under the FOS principle and conducts inward reinsurance business", growth was at 21%.
The group's business result was also impacted by major CAT events, such as hailstorms, with an estimated total value of roughly €46 million, which compares to €212 million in 2023 when Slovenia was hit by devastating floods.
The group's balance sheet total rose by 11% to €4.54 billion with total equity at €989 million. The net return on equity was 14%.
In 2025, Triglav Group projects earnings before tax in the range of between €130 million and €150 million, assuming operations will not be impacted by any major one-off events. Total business volume is to exceed €1.8 billion.
Growth across all of Sava's segments
The business volume growth of Sava Group was driven mainly by growth in non-life and life gross written premiums. In the non-life business, the growth was generated by higher prices and organic business growth, and the life business was boosted by strong sales of new policies and top-up premiums to existing policies. Business volume increased in all segments, outperforming the targets.
The non-life business expanded by 17% in Slovenia and by 18% internationally, while the life insurance business grew by 9% at home and by 16% in international markets.
Through this growth, the group increased its share of the Slovenian market by 1.1 percentage points to 31.2%.
The pensions and asset management segment posted 19% growth in a favourable financial market environment.
The insurance service result was just shy of €109 million, an increase of €25 million as a result of revenue growth and relatively more favourable claims experience.
Although the impact of severe weather events in 2024 was similar in absolute terms to the year before, other segments saw more favourable claim developments. As a result, the group's loss ratio improved by 1.4 percentage points.
