No. 1/2010
31
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INSURANCE MARKET IN
THE COUNTRIES OF THE VISEGRÁD FOUR IN 1995–2007
Duchá ková, E., Lejková, Z., Kafková E., Majtánová, A., Meheš M., Szkarlat,
A., Vološinová, D.:
Bratislava: Vydavate stvo EKONÓM, 2009. 152 p. ISBN 978-80-225-2677-7
The current globalized development in the world provides conditions favourable not only
for the enhancement of living standards of households and economic prosperity of
enterprises, industries and regions, but also for the growth of potential risks which affect
all entities in the market environment. The increase in the number and mainly the extent of
windstorms, torrential rains, floods and other natural disasters, but also the frequency and
the results of carelessness, irresponsibility or bad intentions in people’s activities affect
common lives of households, the profitability and the very existence of companies, and
the possibilities of the public sector to deal with their consequences to a great degree. The
field of insurance industry contributes to successful solutions of the consequences of
accidental insured events and the compensations for health, life, property and interest
losses; moreover, the volume of its investment activities contributes to the development
and stabilization of the national economy.
The monograph provides a complex view of the development of the Slovakian, Czech,
Hungarian and Polish insurance markets in years 1995–2007. It reflects the transformation
and convergence processes related to the entry of these states into the European Union. It
responds to the changes in the legislation implementing the appropriate European Union
Guidelines with the aim to become full members of the united European insurance market.
The publication is divided into five chapters. The first four chapters describe the
development of the individual insurance markets of the V4 countries including the
development of selected macroeconomic indicators and their influence on the growth
dynamics of the insurance markets. Although there are four different insurance markets,
the authors used the same indicators concerning the entire examined period for the
comparison. The implemented legislation of the European Union and the unified statistics
at the national and European levels allow for using the same data, differing in their
absolute values but not by structure, for the analysis. The readers are provided with a
complex overview of the essential indicators with the emphasis on the development of
stipulated premiums, settlements, and claim rates. The information on the investment
activities is based on the volume of technical reserves in both life and other insurances,
which are the source of the financial placement with respect to the financial placement
limits in compliance with the Insurance Act. The fifth chapter contains a temporal and a
regional comparison of the macroeconomic environment which considerably affects and
also determines the development of individual fields of the national economy, including
the insurance industry. Finally, the authors summarize the subject of the research and
present the overview of the analysed indicators both in the macroeconomic field and the
field of the insurance market. The text is accompanied by a number of tables and graphs,
Financial Assets and Investing
32
the source of which was the materials published in annual reports and at web pages of
central banks and insurance associations of the countries in question. Other sources of the
used data are provided in the List of References.
The publication can be used by a wide range of users – students of particular study fields
at universities and colleges of economics, professionals in the insurance practice, and also
the broad public interested in the issue who wish to acquire some more knowledge
concerning the development of the insurance market within the Visegrád Four. The
monograph is an output of a long-term international cooperation of universities and
colleges of economics (University of Economics, Prague, The Faculty of Finance and
Accounting; University of Economics in Bratislava, The Faculty of Business Economics
with seat in Košice; University of Economics in Bratislava, The Faculty of National
Economy; and Krakow University of Economics) who conduct their studies on the issue
of insurance.
The monograph outlines the development of insurance in the conditions of the Central
European insurance market in the time before the manifestation and impacts of the world
financial crisis. Thus it provides a potential to compare events of the development of a
relatively stabilized insurance market before the financial crisis and specific impacts of the
crisis in the following period.
Reviewed by:
František ezá
Masaryk University, Faculty of Economics and Administration
Lipová 41a, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic, e-mail: rezac@econ.muni.cz