“Al Bayan Economic” magazine published in its March 2020 issue (Issue No. 580) an overview on the life insurance premiums collected by the 32 life insurance companies operating in Lebanon in the year 2019. More specifically, the article unveiled that life insurance premium collections dropped by 9.20% in 2019 to $491.66 million, from $541.45 million in 2018. “Al Bayan” also commented on the sizeable drop in the performance of insurance companies affiliated to banks, with life premiums contracting from $300.51 million in 2018 to $258.29 million. In this context, the magazine attributed said drop to the severely hampered new lending activity at banks which reflected negatively on new insurance premiums.

From another perspective, and according to the article, the ten largest insurance companies operating in Lebanon amassed some 62.3% of the combined life and non-life premium collections in the year 2019, with the twenty largest companies controlling a stake of 86.3%. Among said companies, Allianz SNA topped the list of insurance companies, with its life and non-life premium collections aggregating to $153.78 million, followed by Bankers ($123.58 million), Metlife ($120.71 million), and Fidelity ($102.11 million), only to name a few. 

The largest annual expansion in life insurance premium collections came in favor of Arabia (95.4%), followed by Amana (23.3%), UFA (18.8%), and Trust Compass (7.0%). It is worth noting only 9 out of the 32 companies managed to grow their life insurance premium collections in 2019, while 21 suffered annual contractions in life premium collections and 2 companies witnessed a relatively stable flow of collections.