AGF Premium Income Up For 2000

France’s AGF, 51 percent of which is owned by Germany’s Allianz, posted strong growth in premium income in all sectors for the year 2000.

Overall premium income rose 17.8 percent in 2000 to €15.74 billion ($14.78 billion) led by a 29.2 percent increase in life and health sales.”Rates of growth (on a comparable basis) were strong in all regions,” said the report. French premium grew 27.6 percent, European (outside France) premium increased by 19.3 percent, and global (outside Europe) premium rose 15.1 percent.

Non-life activities showed a more modest rise of 7.7 percent overall. General agents accounted for 50 percent of the sales with €1.889 ($1.77 billion) in premium, a rise of 1.5 percent. “It was distributed between personal (80% of the total, including auto at 45%) and commercial lines (20% of the total),”said the announcement.

reflect growing private sector sales, as European governments scale back coverage programs, and an increasingly long lived population looks more and more to the private sector for retirement products.

AGF’s moves into the Latin American market also contributed to the strong earnings growth with a rise of 126.3 percent in life operations.