Lisbon, Aug. 11, 2024 (Lusa) - Four companies told Lusa on Sunday that Portugal's pet insurance market is growing rapidly. Some insurers are registering 50% growth in the volume of policies and betting on this segment.
Fidelidade, Generali Tranquilidade, Mapfre, and Ageas are some of the insurers offering pet insurance in Portugal. They report rapid growth rates but still low take-up, considering the number of Portuguese households with pets.
"As of today [end of July], we have a portfolio of 82,000 policies in force and sustained growth of around 50%," revealed Fidelidade, which has been operating in this market for several years but launched a more complete and integrated insurance in 2018.
Generali Tranquilidade, on the other hand, has seen a volume of policies increase "by almost 50% since 2022, already representing more than a million euros", said an official source.
Ageas Portugal, which began in 2009, has "approximately 20,500 pet insurance policies, distributed through the following channels: Bancassurance, through the Ocidental brand (55%); Agents and Brokers, through the Ageas Seguros brand (37%); and directly on petis.pt (%)". This year saw "a growth of 41 % in the number of new policies", according to Bruno Vaz - responsible for the group's Non-Life offer.
For its part, Mapfre entered the animal insurance market in 2011 and currently has more than 20,000 policies, having grown by an average of 20% per year. "Our portfolio has remained stable since 2022," said Carla Quinteiro, Mapfre's technical and operations director.
The insurers' business is beginning to recognize this segment's importance, but they assure us there is still room to grow.
"In terms of premium volume, at the end of 2023, pet insurance in the Ageas Portugal Group accounted for approximately 11% of the Civil Liability branch," said Bruno Vaz.
Fidelidade, for its part, pointed out that "more than half of the customers of this product are new to the company (51%) and many purchase plan 3 [the most complete and expensive], which is an excellent indicator of the potential that this product brings at various levels, both from the point of view of portfolio renewal and value, as they are potential customers with greater purchasing power".
For Mapfre, the weight of this branch "is small in relation to the total volume of business", said Carla Quinteiro, pointing out that "in the Portuguese non-life insurance market, health, motor and fire insurance and multi-risk (damage to property) have a much more significant weight".
ALN/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
