Insurance sector assets in Ireland eclipse €300bn

Ireland’s insurance sector held assets worth €303 billion at the mid-point of last year, equating to 110 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).

The figure was included as part of a new Central Bank dataset on the insurance industry here.

It shows that insurance corporations, as a subsector of the Irish financial sector, represented 6 per cent of total assets in 2016, compared to a euro area average of 11 per cent.

Life insurance corporations accounted for the majority of the sector, contributing 79 per cent to total assets, followed by reinsurance (13 per cent) and non-life insurance corporations (8 per cent).

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The figures also show that foreign-owned entities accounted for 85 per cent of premiums written, with the remaining 15 per cent earned domestically.

The collection of new insurance statistics was introduced under the direction of the European Central Bank to increase "the quality, coverage and granularity of ECB statistics in the euro area financial sector," the Central Bank said in its support.

They will be updated on a quarterly basis from now on.