Euro area insurance corporation statistics: third quarter of 2023

30 November 2023

This release on insurance corporation statistics is being discontinued. As of 2024, statistics on insurance corporations will be published on a dedicated page on the ECB’s website, which will feature comprehensive charts containing the information previously available in this release.

• Total assets of euro area insurance corporations amounted to €8,163 billion in third quarter of 2023, €107 billion lower than in second quarter of 2023
• Total insurance technical reserves of euro area insurance corporations dropped to €5,810 billion in third quarter of 2023, down €124 billion from second quarter of 2023

Total assets of euro area insurance corporations decreased to €8,163 billion in the third quarter of 2023, from €8,270 billion in the second quarter of 2023. Debt securities accounted for 33.8% of the sector's total assets in the third quarter of 2023. The second largest category of holdings was investment fund shares (30.5%), followed by equity (14.5%) and loans (6.9%).

Holdings of debt securities decreased to €2,761 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2023 from €2,829 billion at the end of the previous quarter. Net sales of debt securities amounted to €2 billion in the third quarter of 2023; price and other changes amounted to -€66 billion (see Chart 1). The year-on-year growth rate of debt securities held was -1.8%.

Looking at holdings by issuing sector, the annual growth rate of debt securities issued by euro area general government was -4.8% in the third quarter of 2023, with net sales in the quarter amounting to €11 billion. As regards debt securities issued by the private sector, the annual growth rate was 0.5%, and quarterly net purchases amounted to €5 billion. For debt securities issued by non-euro area residents, the annual growth rate was 0.9%, with quarterly net purchases of €4 billion.

Chart 1

Insurance corporations' holdings of debt securities by issuing sector

(quarterly transactions in EUR billions; not seasonally adjusted)

Turning to insurance corporations' holdings of investment fund shares, these decreased to €2,493 billion in the third quarter of 2023, from €2,527 billion in the previous quarter, with net sales of €2 billion and price and other changes of -€31 billion (see Chart 2). The year-on-year growth rate in the third quarter of 2023 was -0.1%.

The annual growth rate of euro area money market fund shares held by insurance corporations was 13.6% in the third quarter of 2023, with net purchases in the quarter amounting to €2 billion. As regards holdings of euro area non-money market fund shares, the annual growth rate was -1.1%, with quarterly net sales amounting to €4 billion. For investment fund shares issued by non-euro area residents, the annual growth rate was 4.9%, with quarterly net sales amounting to € 0.4 billion.

Chart 2

Insurance corporations' holdings of investment fund shares by issuing sector

(quarterly transactions in EUR billions; not seasonally adjusted)

In terms of main liabilities, total insurance technical reserves of insurance corporations amounted to €5,810 billion in the third quarter of 2023, down from €5,934 billion in the second quarter of 2023 (see Annex, Table 1). Life insurance technical reserves accounted for 87.8% of total insurance technical reserves in the third quarter of 2023. Unit-linked products amounted to €1,531 billion, accounting for 30.0% of total life insurance technical reserves.

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Notes:

• "Other assets" includes currency and deposits, insurance technical reserves and related claims, financial derivatives, non-financial assets and remaining assets.
• "Private sector" refers to euro area excluding general government.
• "Investment funds" includes money market funds and non-money market funds.
• Hyperlinks in the main body of the statistical release and in the annex table lead to data that may change with subsequent releases as a result of revisions. Figures shown in the annex table are a snapshot of the data as at the time of the current release.