Insurance Corporations Statistics in Ireland: Introducing the New Quarterly Statistics

This article presents new statistics on Insurance Corporations resident in Ireland. The collection of new insurance statistics was introduced to increase the quality, coverage and granularity of ECB statistics in the euro area financial sector. This new dataset, which the Central Bank of Ireland will publish endMarch 2018, will facilitate the analysis of changes in financing by institutional sector, the monitoring of changes in financial intermediation in the Euro Area, and help with assessing and analysing the impact of monetary policy on the transmission mechanism. As a subsector of the Irish financial sector, Insurance Corporations represented 6 per cent of total assets in 2016, compared to a euro area average of 11 per cent. This sector has grown steadily over the past five years, with total assets amounting to €303 billion at end-June 2017, equivalent to 110 per cent of GDP. Life insurance corporations account for the majority of the sector, contributing 79 per cent to total assets, followed by reinsurance (13 per cent) and non-life insurance corporations (8 per cent). The foreign share of the insurance sector in Ireland accounts for 85 per cent of total premiums written, with the remaining 15 per cent of premiums earned domestically. This article provides first results and initial analysis of the new statistical dataset collected and compiled by the Central Bank of Ireland.