€523m
A €523m property loss at Kooperativa, almost all of it reinsured
Kooperativa in Slovakia booked €523m of property claims in 2025 on €84m of earned property premium and kept €18m. Part of the cover was reinsured inside VIG: Union in Hungary booked €542m of accepted claims and passed almost all of them on.
Two insurers of the Vienna Insurance Group report the largest property claims in the region for 2025: Kooperativa, Slovakia's largest insurer, €523m against €84m of earned property premium, and Union in Hungary €542m against €54m. Kooperativa's are direct business, one large loss. Part of its cover was reinsured inside the group, and Union's claims come from proportional reinsurance it accepted and passed almost fully on again, so the two figures overlap and are not added up.
Reinsurers carried €506m of Kooperativa's claims and €535m of Union's, so the two companies kept €18m and €6.7m. On a gross basis the property line pushes Kooperativa's non-life combined ratio to 187% and Union's to 341%; net of reinsurance they are 95% and 98%.
The case shows why Polisa shows net figures next to gross ones where the source allows it: a large reinsured loss, or business accepted and passed on inside a group, can swamp a gross ratio while barely touching the insurer's own result. The Slovak and Hungarian market pages give the market's ratio with and without the loss.
The numbers behind it
More insights
Premium is 2.1% of GDP across the 18 markets and outgrew it in 8 of them
2.1%The 18 markets wrote €56.87bn of premium in 2025, 2.1% of their GDP and €479 per person, while their GDP per person is 54% of the EU average. Scroll through the gap per person, growth since 2021 before and after inflation, where premium outgrew the economy and the outlook to 2028.
Underwriting made money in 17 of 18 markets in 2025, and Poland took 48% of the profit
17 of 18Claims and costs took less than the non-life premium after reinsurance in 17 of the 18 markets in 2025. The region's non-life insurers earned €1.88bn on underwriting and €2.01bn on investments, and insurers reported €5.14bn of net profit, 48% of it in Poland. Scroll through the combined ratio, investments, returns on equity, profit and five years of results.
Motor is 53% of non-life premium in the 18 markets, and over half in 12 of them
53%Motor liability and casco brought in €22.78bn of the €43.01bn the 18 markets wrote in non-life lines in 2025, which include the accident and health cover life insurers sell. Scroll through where motor matters most, claims that rise faster than premiums, what a policy costs, how prices moved and Romania after City and Euroins.
Pages behind it
When the figures change
Every data update is listed with its date, newest first: new figures, corrections and what they changed.
What changedCiteCite this pageThe reference in APA style and as BibTeX, each with a copy button, and the terms of reuse
Polisa compiles the figures; the original sources are named on this page and on the method page.
Polisa. (2026). A €523m property loss at Kooperativa, almost all of it reinsured [Data version 2026-11-11.13378f]. Retrieved November 11, 2026, from https://polisapro.com/insights/one-large-loss-almost-fully-reinsured
BibTeXShow entry
@misc{polisa_insights_one_large_loss_almost_fully_reinsured_2026,
author = {{Polisa}},
title = {A €523m property loss at Kooperativa, almost all of it reinsured},
year = {2026},
version = {2026-11-11.13378f},
howpublished = {\url{https://polisapro.com/insights/one-large-loss-almost-fully-reinsured}},
note = {Accessed 11 November 2026}
}Reuse: Polisa's compilation CC BY 4.0 · source data under each publisher's terms, see Method.