“Al Bayan Economic” magazine, the specialized banking, insurance & shipping pan-Arab monthly magazine, published in its February 2020 issue (Issue No. 579) an overview on the non-life insurance premiums collected by the 44 insurance companies operating in Lebanon in the year 2019. More specifically, the article unveiled that non-life insurance premium collections fell by 3.02% in the year 2019 to almost $1.13 billion, from around $1.17 billion in 2018. Non-life insurance premium collections had widened by 3.4% in 2018, 2.3% in 2017, 3.1% in 2016, 2.4% in 2015, and 5.3% in the year 2014. According to Al Bayan, this is the first time in history that non-life insurance premium collections fell since the civil war. Said fall can be explained by the social uprising that erupted since the last quarter of 2019, accompanied by capital control measures that limited cash withdrawals and halted transfers abroad. These events led to USD liquidity shortages, which in turn, prevented customers from settling their insurance payments in USD.

The ten largest insurance companies operating in Lebanon amassed a stake of 64.74% of non-life premium collections in 2019, with the twenty largest companies controlling a stake of 86.92%. Bankers detained the lion’s share (9.69%) of total non-life insurance premiums in 2019, followed by Fidelity (8.29%), Allianz SNA (7.28%), and Medgulf (7.27%).

The largest increase in non-life insurance premium collections in the year 2019 was reported by Cigna Middle East (27.63%), followed by Berytus (22.20%) and Groupemed (21.39%). It is worth noting that 15 out of the 44 insurance companies operating in Lebanon posted a yearly appreciation in non-life insurance premium collections in the year 2019, while 28 companies suffered a contraction in collections. It is worth mentioning that 3 insurance companies (namely Trust Ins, Liberty and Mains) have ceased operations in the year 2019.