Insurance brokers are expected to arrange policies worth 480 million euros by yearend, up 48% against last year, estimates Bogdan Andriescu, chairman of UNSICAR (National Union of Insurance Brokers and Consultancies).

As a result, the share of insurance contracts sold through brokers on the overall market is expected to revolve around 24%, in the context where the insurance market is forecast to reach 2 billion euros this year.

However, the insurance brokerage level is still way below the EU average, where around 45% of insurance policies are sold through brokers.

In the first nine months of this year, domestic brokers handled insurance contracts worth 380m euros, up 45% against the first three quarters of 2006.

"The evolution was due to the growing leasing market and banking lending (i.e. in the case of some loans, the acquired goods have to be insured)," states Andriescu.

Auto financing accounts for around 70% of the leasing market, with car insurance via Casco policies being mandatory for the period stipulated in the contract.

Out of the overall policies arranged by brokers, just 9% are life insurance, while the rest are general insurance policies, particularly car insurance ones.

In the first 9 months, brokers' revenues reached 60m euros and almost matched the level of revenues reached during the whole of last year. In line with the Insurance Surveillance Commission (CSA) 2006 report, brokers last year registered revenues worth 68m euros (almost 239.8m RON), compared with 45m euros in 2005. Of these, more than 92% came from the negotiation of insurance and reinsurance policies.

In line with CSA data, at present there are around 380 brokers that operate on the insurance market, after the number stood at 370 last year and at 281 in 2005. This year, CSA withdrew the licence of 22 brokers.

UNSICAR also expects bro