Both lines of business contributed to the very robust development in 2015, although the pace of growth on the P&C insurance market (4.5%) is likely to have lagged ever so slightly behind the rate of expansion on the life insurance market (+5.8%). With a relatively stable premium share of 63%, life insurance also dominates the insurance market as a whole. In per capita terms, the population spent a global average of around EUR 615 on insurance products in 2015 (life: EUR 390; P&C: EUR 225). Per capita insurance spending varied in line with the maturity of the market in question, ranging from EUR 7 in Laos to EUR 5,850 in Hong Kong.
This means that the insurance sector grew at a faster rate than general economic output in 2015 for what is now the second year running. In a long-term comparison, the opposite has generally held true: since 2005, average annual growth in global gross domestic product has been 1.3 percentage points ahead of the corresponding rate of growth in total premium income. So after being on a downward trajectory since 2005, the insurance penetration rate, i.e. gross written premiums expressed as a percentage of economic output, has returned to a more stable footing over the past two years.