Latin American insurance market fell in 2020
According to a report presented by Mapfre Economics, last year there was a drop in this indicator of 11.9 % in the region
The insurance market in Latin America experienced a drop of 11.9 % in premiums in 2020, to 134,361 million dollars, of which 57 % were registered in Non-Life insurance compared to the remaining 43 % in Life insurance, according to a report presented by Mapfre Economics and edited by Mapfre Foundation.
The contraction in the sector was mainly motivated by the evolution of the Life business, as well as by the sharp decline in this business line in Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Colombia, in addition to the impact of the depreciation of their local currencies.
As a consequence, the Latin American insurance market share in the world total fell again in the last year, according to the study, to stand at 2.1 %.
The premiums of the insurance segment experienced a decline of 18.7 % measured in dollars, compared to the growth of 5.1 % registered in 2019, while the premiums of Non-Life insurance had a fall of 6.1 %, compared to the 1.1 % contraction observed in 2019.
These setbacks affected practically all the major markets in the Latin American region, the Chilean market being the one that fell the most (-15.3 %), followed by Ecuador (-5.3 %), Mexico (-3.1 % ), Peru (-2.4 %) and Brazil (-2 %).
However, the region also experienced some positive exceptions, such as the growth of Puerto Rico (+13.7 %) driven by the good performance of health insurance.
The aggregate net result of the insurance market in the region stood at 9,316 million dollars in 2020, which represents a decrease of 30.1 % compared to the previous year.
Source: dpa
