A. Žigman at the Croatian Insurance Days 2025: insurance industry faced with growing climate risk challenges
"Climate risks must be viewed as the biggest challenges for business models and market stability," said Hanfa Board President Ante Žigman at this year's edition of the Croatian Insurance Days in Opatija, warning that climate risks are no longer a topic of the future, but of the present. Physical risks penetrate the financial system through numerous channels, creating new challenges, especially in the insurance sector.
Žigman also pointed out that the insurance market continued to grow steadily in 2024 – the number of policies increased by 3 percent, while the gross written premium recorded an increase of almost 10 percent. In particular, he emphasised that claims settled reached a historically high level, almost twice as high as in 2016, reflecting the strengthening of the role of insurance in consumer protection.
Despite positive trends in non-life insurance, citizens continue to show relatively low interest in life insurance. Žigman warned of the disparity between high pay-outs of insurers' profits and low amounts of profit attribution on life insurance policies. He said that increasing these attributions could increase the interest of citizens in this type of product.
Particular emphasis was placed on the increasing climate risks. According to the World Economic Forum, climate and green risks are among the four most important global challenges. As a tourism-oriented Mediterranean country, Croatia is particularly vulnerable to climate stress. Recently, there has been increased interest in policies that cover damage from hail, storms, and other weather events.
More and more companies are getting insured against natural disasters, however, households and entrepreneurs remain poorly insured, especially in less developed counties. "When damages dictate the cost of insurance, the issue of risk resilience becomes crucial for both the insurers and the wider community," Žigman said.
In addition to climate challenges, he also stressed that companies are increasingly diversifying their investments - not only by instruments, but also geographically, with an emphasis on the European Union markets. He also mentioned the start of the insurance sector stress testing activities, as an important step for the resilience of the system.
This year's edition of the Croatian Insurance Days, the twelfth in a row, gathered almost 450 leading experts from the insurance sector in Opatija. The conference, organized under the auspices of the President of the Republic of Croatia and the Ministry of Finance, covered a number of hot topics – from climate risks and digital transformation to the challenges of the new regulatory framework in the context of artificial intelligence.
As part of the conference, a panel discussion was held dedicated to the challenges in the distribution of insurance products, the impact of regulation and the role of artificial intelligence, which, as agreed by the participants, will also need to be regulated. On that occasion, Member of Hanfa Board Anamarija Staničić pointed out that regulation cannot keep pace with the development of technology, adding that she hoped that a better balance between regulation and development would be achieved with the new mandate of the European Commission. "The European regulation currently deals with the issue of data disposal and how to make it easier for clients to transfer their data from one company to another, in order to possibly get a better, tailor-made product," Staničić explained.
Speaking about sales channels, Staničić pointed out that new generations know only one distribution channel, and that is the digital one. Nevertheless, she emphasised that all sales channels are welcome, given that the sale of life and property insurance in Croatia is still at a low level.
She also referred to regulatory processes at the European level, recalling that the European Commission has already launched a simplification package, the first of relating to the Omnibus sustainability reporting package. “I believe that further simplification with respect to reporting will follow. But it's not just about European regulators, it's also about 27 national authorities and markets. It is important to avoid the surge of regulation," Staničić said.
Photo: Foto Renato5
