“Al Bayan Economic” magazine published in its March 2021 issue (Issue No. 592) an overview on the life insurance premiums collected by the 31 life insurance companies operating in Lebanon in the year 2020. More specifically, the article unveiled that life insurance premium collections dropped by 14.75% in 2020 to $428.42 million, from $491.66 million in 2019. “Al Bayan” also commented on the sizeable drop in the performance of insurance companies affiliated to banks, with life premiums contracting from $258.29 million in 2019 to $197.80 million in 2020 attributing this drop to a myriad of factors namely the Covid-19 pandemic coupled with the de-facto capital controls imposed in Lebanon.

From another perspective, and according to the article, the ten largest insurance companies operating in Lebanon amassed some 63.4% of the combined life and non-life premium collections in the year 2020, with the twenty largest companies controlling a stake of 87.8%. Among said companies, Bankers topped the list of insurance companies, with its life and non-life premium collections aggregating to $147.81 million (19.6% y-o-y increase), followed by Allianz SNA ($135.62 million; 11.8% y-oy drop), Metlife ($120.18 million; 0.4% y-oy drop), and Medgulf ($117.82 million; 34.7% y-oy increase), only to name a few. 

The largest annual expansion in life insurance premium collections came in favor of RL 360 (134.7%), followed by Arabia (85.0%), C.I.G. (73.9%), and Bankers (56.9%). It is worth noting that only 6 out of the 31 companies managed to grow their life insurance premium collections in 2020, while 25 suffered annual contractions in life premium collections.