In the first quarter of 2019, total assets of insurance corporations increased to €17,717 million from €17,042 million in the previous quarter.
In further detail, the overall deposits of insurance corporations decreased by €18 million from the previous quarter to €1,287 million in the first quarter of 2019. Deposits with domestic credit institutions decreased by €66 million, while deposits with foreign credit institutions increased by €48 million. Deposits accounted for 7.3% of total assets in the first quarter of 2019 compared with 7.7% in the previous quarter.
Total holdings of debt securities increased to €10,669 million in the first quarter of 2019 from €10,318 million in the previous quarter because of net purchases of domestic debt securities. Debt securities amounted to 60.2% of total assets at end-March 2019 from 60.5% in the previous quarter.
Total holdings of investment fund shares increased to €2,890 million from €2,668 million in the previous quarter. Investment fund shares accounted for 16.3% of total assets at end-March 2019, compared with 15.7% in the previous quarter. The increase in the value of the total holdings is due to the net purchases of foreign investment fund shares.
Total holdings of shares and other equity excluding mutual funds shares increased to €536 million from €510 million in the previous quarter. Equity accounted for 3.0% of total assets at end-March 2019, unchanged from the previous quarter. The increase in the value of shares is due to the increase in the prices of shares listed in the Athens Stock Exchange.
On the liabilities side, own funds increased by €60 million to €2,832 million at end-March 2019. Total insurance technical reserves increased by €535 million to €13,128 million, due to the increase of €494 million in life technical reserves. On the other hand, non-life insurance technical reserves increased by €41 million from the previous quarter. Life technical reserves (other than pension entitlements) accounted for 70.2% of total technical reserves from 69.3% in the previous quarter.
Data to the Bank of Greece are submitted by the supervised insurance corporations as defined in article 1 of the Executive Committee Act 94/16.5.2016 concerning the single submission of national reports by insurance and reinsurance corporations to the Bank of Greece in the context of Solvency II for supervisory and statistical purposes.
