Covid-19 heavily impacted Swiss insurers and reinsurers in 2020

According to the insurance market report published by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma), the health crisis has strongly impacted the results of Swiss insurers and reinsurers in 2020.

Insurance companies are recording a 7.9% drop in their gross premiums, which went from 129.167 billion CHF (133.010 billion USD) in 2019 to 119.005 billion CHF (134.769 billion USD) in 2020. This decline is mainly due to the Covid-19 pandemic and a more restrictive underwriting policy in life insurance.

The net profit of all local insurers stood at 7.5 billion CHF (8.49 billion USD) in 2020, thus decreasing by 51% over one year.

Reinsurance companies, posted a turnover of 45.563 billion CHF (51.5 billion USD), down by 11.2% compared to 2019. This deterioration is mainly linked to the structural adjustment of the Swiss Re group at the end of 2020 and the decline in the exchange rate of certain currencies.

The annual result of the reinsurers went from 3.623 billion CHF (3.73 billion USD) in 2019 to 227.096 million CHF (257.179 million USD) a year later, that is a sharp decrease of 93.7%.