OREANDA-NEWS. November 29, 2010. According to the statistics, in the first nine months of 2010 the aggregate premiums collected by insurance companies of the SOGAZ Insurance Group (OJSC SOGAZ, LLC IC SOGAZ-Life, OJSC IC SOGAZ-Med, LLC IC SOGAZ-Agro, OJSC IC SOGAZ-Sheksna, OJSC MIC Sheksna-M) amounted to RUB78.37 billion, which is a 22% growth year-on-year. The total payments of the group have grown by 19% to RUB51.61 billion.

In the property insurance sector the premium growth was 24% (to RUB23.47 billion).

Premiums in voluntary health insurance have increased by 12% to RUB14.71 billion, and in obligatory health insurance – to RUB35.11 billion (up 25%).

The total assets of the SOGAZ Group companies were valued at RUB98.53 billion in the first nine months of 2010. The group’s net profit according to RAS grew to RUB5.32 billion, which is a 44% rise year-on-year.

“The agricultural insurance sector has shown the highest growth in premiums collected by SOGAZ in comparison to the previous year (89%). Moreover, these figures are not consistent with the overall trend in the market which, according to our estimates, is going to reduce by 15-20% by the end of the year. The reason behind this success is that the SOGAZ Group was joined by the SOGAZ-Agro insurance company in 2009. The results we have achieved in less than two years are proof that the strategy to create specialized insurance companies within the group has totally paid off”, says Vadim Yanov, Chairman of the Management Board of the SOGAZ Group. “On the whole, we expect the insurance market its pre-crisis level by the end of the year, while SOGAZ’s share will become close to 10%”.

The SOGAZ Insurance Group includes insurance companies OJSC SOGAZ, LLC IC SOGAZ-Agro (formerly LLC IC Neftepolis), OJSC Insurance Company SOGAZ-Med (formerly OJSC Gazprommedstrakh), LLC IC SOGAZ-Life, OJSC IC SOGAZ-SHEKSNA, OJSC MIC Sheksna-M, asset management company OJSC Leader, and health service company LLC Gazprommedservice. Currently the group’s regional network includes over 600 subdivisions and sales outlets across Russia and a representative office in Kazakhstan. SOGAZ has been assigned reliability rating A plus plus by Expert RA, as well as international financial stability ratings BB plus (Standard & Poor’s, forecast Stable) and BB (Fitch Ratings, forecast Positive).