July 30, 2010 - 10:06 AMT
Levon Altunyan: live insurance service will be offered in Armenia by 2015

Executive Director of INGO-Armenia insurance company Levon Altunyan said that 2-3 companies dealing with life insurance will appear in Armenia by 2014-2015 as part of pension reforms’ implementation. And all of them will be institutional investors, Altunyan told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter.

“It depends on reforms' essence: if they draw our population’s attention to a private capital, and people start insuring themselves in private pension and insurance companies, the demand will generate supply,” he said.

According to Altunyan, insurance companies of those countries, which are traditionally strong in these fields – Switzerland, France, Japan and Scandinavian countries - may display interest towards the Armenian insurance market.

As for the project of the Central Bank of Armenia to increase the minimum amount of capital of loan organizations, Altunyan said that currently eight companies operate in Armenia, while after approval of the project only 2-3 companies will leave the market. “The other companies will operate irrespective of the amount of authorized capital,” he noted.

Altunyan added that if foreign investors enter Armenia’s market for life insurance, they will be institutional investors, and the amount of authorized capital will hardly hamper their activity.