Dead in the water

ENAR

When economic times are tough for Lebanese companies, insurers get singed. Less international trade means fewer cargo insurance contracts. Less hiring means fewer premiums invested in employee needs. Fewer overland deliveries to domestic and neighboring markets means less insurance of commercial vehicles, whether due to smaller fleet sizes or to dropping demand for coverage while driving through the region under the Orange Card scheme. Lebanese insurers have nonetheless maintained fair public levels of calm when compared with the swelling choirs of doom that one hears intonating economic laments about banking, hospitality, retail, industrial manufacturing and, most recently, real estate markets. The most recent Quarterly Report, a statistical compilation of insurance data, issued in February and covering the fourth quarter of 2012 in a full-year context, showed that total gross premiums came in just below $1.3 billion. This voided some mid-2012 statements by several sector leaders who at the time told