OREANDA-NEWS. November 24, 2009. The aggregate premium collected by OJSC IC ROSNO from personal real estate insurance in 9 months of 2009 exceeded 420 mln roubles, almost on a par with the results shown in the same period of the previous year, reported the press-centre of ROSNO.

In ROSNO’s portfolio, the segment of expensive country real estate and apartments of private individuals has demonstrated a 25% growth. At the same time, in 9 months of the running year, the volume of insurance coverage of inexpensive installations (priced up to 50,000 US dollars) and summer cottage houses, on the contrary, decreased by 25%.

"In the personal real estate insurance segment, we note several trends. Firstly, despite the crisis, we see a persisting demand for insurance coverage among owners of apartments and expensive buildings and, on the contrary, a decreasing demand among owners of summer cottage houses and inexpensive installations. The latter is due to the abrupt deterioration of the middle class’s purchasing power in the regions caused by the economic crisis. People either abandon insurance coverage altogether, or they cross out in their policies everything except main buildings, thus discontinuing insurance coverage of such elements as movable property or household installations. Secondly, Russians today show more awareness in insurance coverage of apartments and expensive buildings. Currently, this segment witnesses redistribution of the client base: insurants formerly serviced by small companies now choose larger and more reliable market players", explains Mr. Artem Iskra, Director of ROSNO’s Personal Property Insurance Department.

The aggregate amount of insurance compensations paid in the personal real estate insurance segment in 9 months of 2009 equalled 72.3 mln roubles. In this regard, apartment insurance compensations increased by 23%, while compensations for the insured summer cottage houses and private houses dropped by 11%. This figure directly depends on the dynamics of premium collected in these segments.

In the 9 months of 2009, as always, floods accounted for over half of all insured accidents in the real estate insurance segment (52% of all accidents, 27% of compensation payments). The major share of compensations in monetary terms belongs to fires (38%), though the quantity of such accidents is quite small, just 6%. This stems from the fact that fires often inflict much more serious damage than other risks. Unlawful third-party actions accounted for 4% of all insured accidents and 1% of all insurance compensations.