Almost 60,000 Romanians have cancelled their life insurance policies since the beginning of the year, after the amounts accumulated in their accounts had seriously shrunk as a result of the collapse of stock markets, while several other thousand people took back only part of the money from their insurance policies. Total amounts paid by insurers for policy redemptions in the first six months stood at 62 million euros, according to the data of the Insurance Supervision Commission (CSA). Redemption cases have doubled compared with the same time in 2008.
"Most redemption cases involved unit-linked insurance, people panicked thinking they were losing too much money with this type of insurance," Angela Toncescu, CSA chairperson told Ziarul Financiar. The amounts paid upon redemption account for about 10% of the assets on the unit-linked segment.
The biggest companies on the unit-linked market are ING, Allianz-Tiriac, Aviva and Eureko. The amount paid by insurers to clients redeeming their policies is lower than what the clients invested in these policies. Those who cancel their unit-linked life insurance before the due date lose a great deal of the money they paid, in some cases more than half of it. The problem here is that there are also many cases when the policies mature and clients get less money than they invested or their profits are below the inflationary rate.
"This year I cancelled a life insurance policy I took five years ago because I needed the cash. Out of the 5,500 RON I paid in all, I only got back 2,200," says a client of an insurance company, who wanted to remain anonymous.
Almost 60,000 Romanians have cancelled their life insurance policies since the beginning of the year, after the amounts accumulated in their accounts had seriously shrunk as a result of the collapse of stock markets, while several other thousand people took ba
