The number of life insurance providers remained the same in 2019. In the non-life insurance sector, two were granted licenses in the year, while one was released from supervision. In 2019, one professional reinsurer was granted a license for insurance activities, while two reinsurers and two reinsurance captives exited the market (partially connected to mergers).

Swiss insurance companies achieved aggregate annual profits of CHF 15.2bn in 2019, which represents a 44% increase over the previous year. Life insurers reported a moderate increase in their annual profits up 8% to CHF 1.5bn, but non-life insurers experienced a real increase in profits of CHF 3.3bn or 49% to CHF 10.1bn. Reinsurers increased their annual profits from CHF 2.4bn in 2018 to CHF 3.6bn in 2019 (a 49% increase).

LIFE INSURANCE

Gross premium volume had a slight increase of 0.9%, while payments for insurance cases increased by 57.5%. Expenditure for insurance operations increased by 0.9% following two years of lower numbers (2018: minus 0.5%; 2017: minus 2.0%). There was a better investment income in 2019, up by 15.6%, that explains the improvement in annual profit which showed an increase of 8.6%.

NON-LIFE INSURANCE

Premiums increased by 2.3% (gross) compared with 2018. Both direct and indirect business has grown. By contrast, the claims expenditure (net) remained stable in 2019, with a slight fall in payments for insurance claims of 1.2%, compensating for a lower release of provisions than in 2018.