Insurance

The world’s big insurance markets collected $4.3 trillion in premiums in 2008,according to Swiss Re,a global reinsurance firm. After adjusting for inflation,total premiums in life and non-life insurance markets fell by 2 per cent last year,the largest decline since 1980. Although emerging-market premiums grew by more than 11 per cent,they still only made up 12 per cent of the total. Life insurance,which has been hardest hit by the financial crisis,still provides about 60 per cent of total premiums. It has also grown more than twice as fast as non-life insurance in emerging markets,although Russia,where the market shrank 28 per cent,is a notable exception. Britons bought the most insurance per person in 2008.

© The Economist Newspaper Limited 2009