The supervisory board of the listed UNIQA Versicherungen Group has approved the acquisition of approximately 94% of the share capital of the Raiffeisen Osiguranje d.d., Sarajevo / Bosnia and Hercegovina from the Raiffeisen Bank d.d.

This step is enabling the UNIQA Group to expand its activities in the south-eastern part of Central Europe and to reinforce its successful cooperation with the Raiffeisen Bank group. UNIQA CEO Konstantin Klien commented that “Cooperation of specialists is the best way to success, especially in relatively small markets. Raiffeisen and UNIQA have been partners over a period of many years, not only as a result of the fact that each has shares in the other. Both originated in cooperative fields and are able to point to a unique success story in Austria in the area of bank  assurance. It is a logical step to extend this positive experience to the countries in eastern and southern Europe as well. Cooperation has so far been established in Croatia, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary and is currently being intensified. Thus, we are already in six eastern European countries, four of which are new members of the EU, and therefore active together”.

Raiffeisen Osiguranje d.d., Sarajevo

Raiffeisen Osiguranje d.d. is active in the Federation of Bosnia and Hercegovina and in the Brcko region. The company was founded in 1997 and the Raiffeisen Bank d.d., Sarajevo, has been its majority owner since 2001.Following an increase of around 13% to € 7.5 in mandatory  premiums last year, the company holds a market share of approximately 6.7% (ranked 6th on the market).The Raiffeisen Bank d.d. is the largest and best known bank in Bosnia and Hercegovina, with a market share of more than 21%. Over 1,100 employees are currently providing services for around 450,000 private clients in 65 branch offices.

Raiffeisen Osiguranje’s head office is in Sarajevo. There are 6 offices and 12 branches with 122 employees in the total area of the Federation of Bosnia and Hercegovina. The company offers all the usual lines of insurance in the region (loss/damage and accident, health, life). Besides a salaried sales force,  the company also utilizes all the other available forms of distribution and sales. A considerable part of the business involves cooperation with the Raiffeisen Bank d.d. Both companies intend to intensify this as far as bank assurance is concerned.

The total insurance market of Bosnia and Hercegovina has a premium volume of approximately € 100 million at its disposal. The main feature of the market is the dominance of automobile third party insurance (more than 55% of the premiums),  underdevelopment in life insurance (around 8% of the premiums) and a large number of companies with extremely low market shares.