Kazakh insurance market shows positive trends
2012-03-28 12:59:23
The state regulator commends the development prospects of Kazakhstan’s insurance market. At the same time, according to the country’s National Bank, the organization will continue to address additional measures to maintain the stable development in this segment.
A number of changes have taken place in the insurance market since the beginning of the year. Thus, insurance companies switched to the general tax regime, which involves the payment of corporate income tax. Now the National Bank and the Finance Ministry are working on bringing the tax regime on insurance reserves closer to the regulatory requirements on forming these reserves.
Nurlan Abdrakhmanov, Director, Department of Supervision and Control Methodology, National Bank of Kazakhstan
«The second activity lies in further improvement of the regulation, which means making regulatory standards in Kazakhstan correspond to international ones, including maintaining and implementing the counter-cyclicity principle. That is, when the regulation takes into account the development stage of the insurance market and the economy and it is modified sufficiently to ensure stability and long-term development of the insurance market.»
In this respect, a bill on compulsory insurance is planned to be developed among other things in 2013, as part of which the reduction of compulsory types of insurance will be considered. According to Nurlan Abdrakhmanov, inefficiently functioning classes, such as Third Party Liability insurance and activities of audit firms as well as tour operators may be excluded from the list.
Nurlan Abdrakhmanov, Director, Department of Supervision and Control Methodology, National Bank of Kazakhstan
«Regulation has never involved direct limitation or expansion of the market. The regulation is based on the principle that provides a level playing field for all organizations. It does actually limit some risks to a certain extent, but it provides a common denominator for all of the companies. So, without insurance regulation some companies might gain dominance on the market.»
According to the Financial Supervision Committee of the Kazakhstan National Bank, as of March 1, 2012, there were 37 insurance companies in Kazakhstan. The total amount of premiums collected as of February 1, 2012 amounted to 20 billion 482 thousand tenge.