Low Financial Returns Undermine the Life Insurance Business

With a modest increase of premium revenues by 1.1 percent in 2011, growth of Austria's private insurance companies remained below that of nominal GDP (+5 percent). Performance within the sector was uneven: while premium revenues in non-life and accident insurance rose by a hefty 7.2 percent, they fell by a surprisingly strong 7.3 percent in the life insurance branch. Fragile conditions on money and capital markets led to a squeeze in insurers' financial earnings in 2011 and to the rate of return on invested insurance capital converging towards the benchmark yield on federal government bonds.