The situation in the industry in Greece looks as though the trend is to continue slipping.
Last year, the insurance market in Greece took a significant hit as the number of people in the country who cashed in savings based policies broke all previous records of that nature.
That trend revealed a solid decline of the state of the insurance industry within the country.
This appears to be yet another casualty of the economic crisis in Greece. The reason is that as people have watched their disposable incomes withering, they have found it increasingly difficult to be able to pay their various bills, including their insurance premiums payments. As a result, they have cashed out of their savings based policies and have generated a trend that is causing the insurance market in the country to take a significant dive.
A recent report from Kathimerini has provided notable insight on the Greek insurance market situation.
The report stated that the money that was paid out by insurance companies as a result of early policy terminations that occurred in 2015 alone spiked to a tremendous 815.5 million euros. That is the highest that figure has been in eight years.
The country’s insurance industry has been shrinking at a rate closely resembling a nose-dive since the economic crisis first began. In fact, since 2008, there has been a contraction of that market by 28 percent in Greece. This was only worsened along with contribution and tax hikes, as well as cuts to pensions and salaries made things increasingly difficult.
Adding to the alarming situation faced by the people of Greece has been a sharp rise in unemployment. This combination of factors has been devastating to household incomes and has made it impossible for many people to be able to keep up with their insurance premiums.
The insurance market has now started suffering along with so many other industries within the country. No further predictions were presented by Kathimerini, nor was there any suggestion as to what the long term damage of this situation could be on this market as well as on the Greek economy as a whole.