Research and Markets: Hungary Insurance Report Q1 2009 - Available Now

DUBLIN, Ireland--(Business Wire)--
Research and Markets
(http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/6bb1a1/hungary_insurance) has
announced the addition of the "Hungary Insurance Report Q1 2009" report to their
offering.

Our Hungary Insurance Report provides independent forecasts and competitive
intelligence on Hungary's insurance industry.

Hungarian industrial production data for November showed the fourth consecutive
month of contraction, with output falling by a whopping 12.2% (10.1% when
adjusted for calendar effects) year-on-year (y-oy).

This is yet another leading indicator of the Hungarian economy's rapid
deterioration. On the back of this release, and given our downgrade of our 2009
Eurozone GDP growth forecast to -1.6%, we have revised down our Hungarian 2009
growth forecast. We now anticipate a deep recession, with GDP growth of -3.4%
replacing our previous moderate recession forecast of -0.8%. Moreover, we expect
growth to remain weighed down beyond 2009, and forecast GDP growth of only 0.1%
in 2010, down from the 2.6% that we previously anticipated.

A key factor negatively impacting the Hungarian economy in 2009 will be the
recession in all key external trading partners. Germany entered technical
recession in Q308, and we believe that the entire Eurozone will follow suit in
2009. Moreover, we expect the UK economy to shrink by 3.5% in 2009 and Russia to
contract as well in H109. This in turn will severely impact demand for Hungarian
exports, which we expect to contract by 4.5% in 2009, from a previous
expectation of 0.5% growth. The industrial production data already reflects the
effects of the external slowdown. Hungarian industry is heavily geared towards
manufacturing export goods, and the weakness of demand in the Eurozone is
forcing such firms to rein in production. We forecast industrial output growth
to average -5.0% over 2009, which will be indicative of the weakness of export
demand.

Moreover, while we had previously forecast export growth to recover reasonably
robustly beyond 2009 - to 7.3% in 2010 - we now see the global recession lasting
throughout the next two years. This is likely to hinder Hungarian exporters
throughout 2010, and have slashed our export growth forecast to 1.0%
accordingly. Since the last quarter, we have made two major changes to the data
in this report. First, we have - to the greatest extent possible - incorporated
hard figures that have been made available by the regulator(s) and trade
association(s) in each country. In some cases, therefore, we have begun to
include numbers that pertain to the development of the insurance sector through
the early stages of the global financial crisis.

Second, we have extended our forecasts out to 2013. In all cases, we have
reviewed the key growth drivers - non-life penetration and life density -
incorporated in our forecasts. The global financial crisis is likely to affect
the various segments of the global insurance industry in different ways. In many
countries, especially in Europe, the coming recession points to softness in the
non-life segment. In many cases, numbers of policies may fall and there should
be downwards pressure on premiums. By contrast, the main problem for the life
segment in almost every country is the extreme volatility of financial markets.
Over the longer term however, the fortunes of life insurance will likely recover
thanks to the secular growth of organised savings in most countries. China -
where the larger insurance companies continue to achieve double digit growth in
premium income - is a good example of this. Some particular niches should also
do well in the current environment, such as legal liability insurance.

In Central and Eastern Europe, we profile 22 multi-national insurance companies.
In alphabetical order, these are AEGON, AIG, Allianz, Aviva, AXA, Cardif, ERGO,
Eureko, Fortis, Generali, GRAWE, Groupama, HDI-Gerling, HSBC Insurance, ING,
MetLife, Prudential Financial, QBE, RSA, UNIQA, Vienna Insurance Group and
Zurich Financial Services.

We also discuss the regional presence of Belgium's KBC and Austria's Erste Bank
through a number of insurance subsidiaries and explain the importance, for each
of the various countries, of purely domestic firms.

For more information visit
http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/6bb1a1/hungary_insurance.

Research and Markets
Laura Wood
Senior Manager
press@researchandmarkets.com
Fax from USA: 646-607-1907
Fax from rest of the world: +353-1-481-1716

Copyright Business Wire 2009