Russia Insurers
AM Best: COVID-19 Sparked Innovation for Insurers in Russia

• John Weber
• August 2021
• 

BUMPER TO BUMPER: A traffic jam on the Kremlin embankment in Moscow. Due to the pandemic, the Russia motor insurance segment experienced lower claims, according to a Best’s Market Segment Report.

Russian insurers expanded their digital presence during the pandemic, said Valeria Ermakova, associate director, analytics, and Todor Kitin, financial analyst, AM Best.

Russia's economy took a hit in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and a sharp decline in global oil prices. While these factors created volatility in Russia's insurance market, the pandemic also accelerated innovation, according to the Best's Market Segment Report COVID-19 and the Russia Insurance Market: Negative Implications for Premium Growth, but Opportunities for Innovation.

Following is an edited transcript of an interview with Ermakova and Kitin.

For a number of years, the life insurance segment was the main growth driver in the Russian insurance market. However, the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic intensified a trend of premium decline, which had already started in 2019. Later in 2020, though, the life market started to expand again. What are the reasons for this?

Kitin: Following a sharp decline in the second quarter of 2020, premium volumes in life insurance recovered through the rest of the year.

In response to the economic situation, the Central Bank of Russia reduced the interest rates several times in 2020. This made customers switch their preferences to alternative investment solutions, which typically generate higher return than bank deposits.

At the same time, the lower interests increased the borrowing activity in Russia. This, in turn, boosted sales of credit life insurance, which was another positive factor for the segment.

It's important to mention as well that in recent years the regulator has taken significant steps to increase public trust in life products, which was eroded by mis-selling practices in the past. The lower number of complaints and the stricter transparency requirements have increased the confidence of the customers.

This, combined with the low interest, is expected to generate steady demand and support the growth of life insurance premiums.

Let's talk about motor insurance in Russia. The report says that the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic were broadly positive for insurers, although there are some risks that can pressure profitability in the long term. Can you elaborate on that?

Ermakova: In Russia, the motor segment can be separated into two main segments: the compulsory motor third-party liability, or MTPL, and motor hull, which is voluntary. We discussed both segments in our report, but for now I'm just going to talk about the MTPL.

So in general, MTPL—the compulsory nature of this segment combined with the official efforts to reduce the number of uninsured vehicles helped to prevent a drop in this line of business. In fact, we observed a slight increase in both the number of contracts and the volumes of premiums over the first nine months of 2020, compared to the same period in 2019.

The profitability, of course, benefited to some extent from lower claims frequency, especially in the second quarter due to the lockdown measures in the country.

At the same time, we are seeing some challenges that can threaten MTPL profits in the longer term. For example, the ongoing liberalization of regulatory tariffs is likely to drive down overall premium rates as insurers are willing to offer discounts to policyholders, given the very high competition in this segment.

In addition to that, we'll have issues to do with claims inflation given the increased cost of spare parts and also an acceleration of online insurance and online price comparison, which is good for the market in terms of technology, but it is likely to intensify that price-based competition even further, putting pressure on the profitability.

Let's talk about voluntary medical insurance. The report mentions a substantial premium reduction in 2020, but at the same time, healthy growth is anticipated in the future. Can you tell us more about that?

Kitin: The substantial drop in voluntary medical insurance premiums in the second and the third quarters of 2020 was largely a consequence of policyholders trying to reduce expenses during the economic slowdown, including large corporations, SMEs, retail customers.

This negative trend was offset by a preserved profitability because in the same period of time the insurers incurred a lower level of losses, because medical services were not accessible or scheduled for later during the quarantine.

In terms of future prospects, the impact of the pandemic has led to a higher awareness amongst the population of the importance of having access to good-quality medical care.

Some Russian insurers start to respond to this by using tools such as telemedicine, wearables, various wellness programs in order to incentivize their customers and also improve their own risk selection. Other insurers are, for example, utilizing their own clinics to improve the quality of medical services.

In 2020, insurers also have accelerated sales of standardized products, which are more affordably priced. These are all reasons for higher demand for the voluntary medical insurance in the longer term.

We expect investments in product design and technology the companies make to accelerate innovation across the whole insurance market in Russia.

How does innovation affect insurance companies in Russia and have you seen any impact from the COVID-19 pandemic?

Ermakova: In general, whilst the COVID-19 pandemic presented challenges for Russian insurers in terms of both the asset and the liability side of their balance sheet, it also highlighted the increasingly important role of technology and innovation in the industry.

What we've seen is that the sudden need to work remotely caught some insurance companies by surprise, as they were still rolling out their digital platforms. For some of these insurers, the only way to reach their customers was through online bank insurance platforms operated by the banking sector.

However, this route to the market came at the expense of high commissions that insurers had to pay those intermediaries. That downside associated with a heavy reliance on distribution through the banking channel is the risk of lower client retention.

What I mean by that is that when consumers buy a product through the banking channel, they may no longer associate the coverage that they purchase with a particular insurance brand.

This emphasizes the importance of developing in-house digital capabilities. In that respect, COVID-19 has accelerated that move toward digitalization.

In the medium term, we think that Russian insurers are likely to review their business models, and some companies have already started doing that so they adapt their services to the current consumers' expectations, consumer behaviors, making their services more accessible online. This is likely to be not just in the distribution but also with respect to underwriting and claims handling, which is what we are already seeing in some of the more mature insurance markets.

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