Demianchuk L.V.,

Assoc. Prof. Demianchuk O.I.,

The National University of Ostroh Academy

Formulation of the problem. The experience of the leading countries’ financial markets shows that the role of insurers as institutional investors is continually increasing. The share of investment resources’ revenue into the real economy is increasing.  As a result, the investment potential of insurance companies equates to the investment potential of the banking sector. During the crisis in Ukraine, the research of insurance companies as providers of long-term investments in the national economy is rather relevant.

Analysis of recent research and publications.  Many foreign and domestic scientists study the experience of insurance companies’ investment practice and explore the formation of their investment portfolio in the leading countries of the world and in Ukraine: G. Markovitts, P. Hein, V. D. Bazylevych, N. L. Voronina, R.V. Picus and others.

The purpose and objectives of the study are to determine the investment experience of insurance companies in European countries and in Ukraine.

An account of the main material. Insurance companies in the leading countries today are among the largest institutional investors that manage their own assets in the long run. In particular, the long-term investment and especially the formation of the investment portfolio is mainly formed by life insurance, as the share of insurance companies operating in the life insurance industry is more than 80% of their total population [1].

To determine the efficiency of the personal insurance field, the author illustrates the correlation of the insurance companies’ investment portfolio that is engaged in life insurance, to country’s GDP, compared with the leading countries of the European Union (Table 1).

Table 1

The correlation of the insurance companies’ investment portfolio to GDP in

EU countries and in Ukraine during 2010-2014.

* Calculated by the author on the basis of sources [ 2-4 ].

First of all, we see that the EU insurance market is dynamically growing, because the share of the investment portfolio in relation to GDP is growing, particularly in 2014 this indicator reached the value of 48.5%, which is almost half of the GDP of the European Union. In particular, it should be noted that in the UK and France the analyzed indicator reaches significantly higher values (respectively 87.6% and 85.9%). Therefore, we can conclude that the insurance sector is the largest institutional investor in the EU. In particular, the annual reports on the EU insurance market indicate that almost 9,900 billion euros were invested in the economy during 2014.

However, the opposite situation is observed in Ukraine, as the analyzed indicator reaches only 0.34%, which is hundreds of times lower than in EU countries. The main reason for this situation is the lack of the development of life insurance in Ukraine and, as a result, insurers cannot make the remedial influence on the country’s financial sector and stabilize the situation in Ukraine.

In addition, the structure of the investment portfolio of the companies that deal with life insurance in the EU and Ukraine in 2014 should be compared for a more detailed analysis. According to the European insurance federation, leading assets, in which EU insurance companies invested, are debt securities and other securities with fixed income (50.4%), equities and other securities with variable yield (21.0%) and loans including unsecured loans (13.2%) [3]. Thus, insurers are investing in the real economy, investing in advanced and innovative industries that provide economic growth to the EU. However, two sources of investments dominate in the structure of the investment portfolio in Ukraine: securities issued by the state – 41.0%; and bank deposits – 40.0% [4]. It should be noted that these are not the most profitable assets, but they are guaranteed by the state. And according to the author, the investments in Ukraine are quite conservative, because there is no support for the real economy.

Conclusions. Thus, in Western Europe, insurers are seen as the key source of investments aimed at growth of the national economy, while in Ukraine the investment practice of the insurance companies is in its infancy. Although the gradual reformation of the national economy creates a framework for their further development.

Literature:

1.Пікус Р. Досвід інвестиційної діяльності зарубіжних страхових компаній / Р. Пікус, Д. Нестерова// Вісник КНУ ім. Тараса Шевченка. Економіка. – 2014. – Вип. 3(156). – С. 6-11.

2.Statistics N°50: EuropeanInsuranceinFigures/ AntonellaCorrias// InsuranceEurope. – 2015. // [Electronic resource]. — Availableat: http://www.insuranceeurope.eu.

3.EuropeanInsurance — KeyFacts / NicolasJeanmart, AntonellaCorrias// InsuranceEurope. – 2015. // [Electronic resource]. — Availableat: http://www.insuranceeurope.eu.

4. Підсумки діяльності страхових компаній за 2014 рік. Інформація про стан та розвиток страхового ринку України [Електронний ресурс] // Офіційний сайт Національної комісії, що здійснює державне регулювання у сфері ринків фінансових послуг. – Режим доступу: http://nfp.gov.ua/files/sektor/sk_%202014.pdf.