YEREVAN, March 10, /ARKA/. Ingo-Armenia insurance company plans to collect this year 2.3 billion Drams in voluntary insurance premiums and sell as much mandatory car insurances, its executive director Levon Altunian told a news conference March 9 at Novosti international press center.

He said the company collected 1.9 billion Drams in voluntary insurances last year, a 300 million drams rise from 2009 and the bulk of premiums was collected for insuring motor vehicles, property and medical risks. In his words, the company re-insured 70% of its risk portfolio.

‘The last year was very important to our company, especially in terms of more than tripling our staff that has reached 108 people and besides we have 600 insurance agents across the country’ he said.

The company has sold 62,000 car insurances, almost 18% of the overall cars in the country and plans to raise the figure to about 90,000.

The company has registered 400 car accidents this year, mainly in Yerevan, having paid 15% of the amount collected as premiums to compensate the damages. He said it takes an agent 28 minutes on average to arrive at the car accident spot in Yerevan and 40 minutes in the regions.

The mandatory insurance against physical damage caused to other cars and individuals became mandatory in the country on January 1, in accordance with a government-drafted law passed by the Armenian parliament last year. According to the government data, there are some 430,000 or so vehicles registered in Armenia.

Ingo Armenia insurance company was established in 1997 as Efes cjsc. In 2003 75% of its shares were acquired by Russian Ingostrakh insurance company and Efes was renamed Ingo Armenia. Twenty-five percent of the company is owned by Levon Altunian. Its charter capital is 750.1 million Drams. As of December 31, 2010 its total assets were worth 4.2 billion Drams, total liabilities stood at 2.5 billion Drams and the total capital at 1.6 billion Drams. In 2010 the company’s suffered 60 million Drams in net losses. -0-