Weak Growth Weighs on Private Insurance Business in 2013

The insurance penetration remained at its low level (5.3 percent) throughout 2013, the consequence of a decline in revenues from life insurance premium payments and below-average growth in the non-life and accident insurance business. With the first contracts falling due and new business moving at a sluggish rate, revenues from payments into state-aided old age insurance continued to fall. Persistently low yields from investment effectively prevented the surplus from investment income to grow inspite of an increase in capital investments. Implementation of the EU's "Solvency-II" Directive was postponed to January 2016, although Austria will put into operation some of the measures covered by the second and third pillars of Solvency II already in 2014.