Balance sheet and income statement for the 2025 insurance market
Once a year, FINMA compiles data on business development within the insurance companies that fall under its supervision and provides an overview of industry key figures in the Insurance Market Report. You can find an overview of the findings here.
According to FINMA, gross premiums written amounted to around 149.1 billion Swiss francs for the overall market in 2025. Roughly 88.7 billion Swiss francs were returned to policyholders in the form of pay-outs for insurance claims. Swiss insurance companies recorded an aggregated annual profit of around 24.4 billion Swiss francs, well above the previous year’s figure of 10.4 billion Swiss francs.
You can find a detailed overview of premium volumes within the Swiss direct insurance industry and how these are distributed across the individual branches here.
525 billion Swiss francs of assets invested
The balance sheet shows the assets and liabilities of the insurers. One of the largest positions on the liabilities side of the balance sheet is the underwriting reserves. These are potential, long-term payment obligations totalling around 498.9 billion Swiss francs on insurers’ books. They are exceeded only by the capital investments on the assets side used by insurers to guarantee the fulfilment of these obligations. These total 524.6 billion Swiss francs. Fixed-income securities remained the most important asset class, at 41 per cent. This makes the insurance sector an important investor – including in the Swiss economy.
Private insurance demonstrates a high degree of solvency
Various key figures are used to review whether or not the obligations of insurers are guaranteed at all times. These include the coverage ratio, which indicates the extent (in per cent) to which obligations are covered by tied assets, with the latter subject to strict investment guidelines. With a coverage ratio of 112 per cent, the target amount of 101 per cent is clearly exceeded for 2025.
Another key figure for assessing the extent to which obligations can be fulfilled is the Swiss Solvency Test (SST). This assesses the capitalisation of insurers. With a solvency rate of 254 per cent in 2025, the available capital (risk-bearing capital) exceeds the required capital (target capital) many times over. Tied assets and the risk-based solvency regime under the SST guarantee a high degree of security for policyholders.
Reinsurance provides cover against extraordinary natural disasters
FINMA devotes a section of its report to reinsurance cover for natural disasters in Switzerland. Damage caused by natural disasters in 2025 was largely attributable to the rockslide in Blatten. FINMA puts the estimated insured claims expenditure at around 273 million Swiss francs. Owing to the natural perils pool and the structure of the reinsurance cover, Swiss reinsurers were not affected by this.
The natural perils pool facilitates a loss adjustment between the companies involved across Switzerland. In addition, it is backed by reinsurance cover with a broad international base. This structure is referred to as stop-loss cover. It does not cover individual loss events; instead, the losses are aggregated over the course of the year. It currently applies following an excess of 550 million Swiss francs on the part of primary insurers and extends up to an upper limit of 1.8 billion Swiss francs. In years with exceptionally high losses, stop-loss reinsurance can thus assume a significant share of the claims burden.
2025 Insurance Market Report
The annually published FINMA Insurance Market Report contains general information about the insurance market in Switzerland and sector-specific balance sheet and income statement data.
The sector-specific figures show the growth of premiums, the market shares of the largest companies in the Swiss industry and the development of equity and the annual result. In life insurance, the report also covers coverage capital and underwriting result. Since the 2019 annual survey, the report now also contains information relating to the ‘operating statements of occupational pension schemes’ and therefore replaces the ‘transparency report for occupational pension schemes’ from the previous year.
