Asirom expects to remain profitable this year

Insurance company Asirom Vienna Insurance Group announced it expects to make a profit this year as well, after posting a net profit of 4.9 million lei last year. The announcement was made by Boris Schneider, the company"s general manager. He said that the positive results come as a result of the management"s efforts to streamline the company"s operations. "In 2009, Asirom concluded the administrative operations and invested heavily in IT equipment. Also, compensation payments were carefully watched", said Schneider, without making any profit forecasts for the current year.

Last year, Asirom made a profit of 4.9 million lei, after posting a loss of 67.6 million lei in 2008. In 2008, the company had received 750.2 million lei in premiums.

The officials of the company announced that Asirom would invest another 2 million Euros this year in IT equipment and software. As a result, by the end of the year, Asirom would issue 80% of its general insurance portfolio online and expects to increase this ratio to 100 by 2011. In 2009 alone, the company invested EUR 800,000 in equipping its sales agents, without including the IT equipment for centralizing and managing the data collected by the agents on the field.

Asirom is part of the Austrian group Vienna Insurance Group, being one of the five largest domestic insurers and a major player on the auto insurance market. In Romania, Vienna Insurance Group (VIG) also controls the companies Omniasig and BCR Asigurări.

• RCA policy which includes CASCO policy benefits

Insurance company ASIROM has launched a product which offers customers who own RCA policies benefits usually provided by CASCO policies. The new product helps customers save time and protects them from the discomfort which commonly occurs in the event of car accidents involving drivers insured with a different company. Users of the new type of policy will receive the compensatory payments for damages caused by a third party driver directly from "Asirom", leaving it to Asirom itself to handle the collection of the insurance claim from the insurer of the driver who caused the accident.

According to estimates made so far, it can take months for an individual insurance customer to get their insurance payment, whereas the new product guarantees that the payment will be received within the shortest delays, within 7 days at the most after the complete claim for payment has been accepted.

The company expects the new product, "RCA + Casco Partener" will attract over 100,000 customers by the end of the year.