National Statistical Institute

"Annual Business Statistics" Department

Desislava Asenova

Shief expert

2, P. Volov Str.; 1038 Sofia, Bulgaria

[email protected]

+359 2 9857 477

The SBS survey of insurance enterprises covers all insurance enterprises, which are licensed in accordance with national legislation. All of them are classified in classes 65.11 (life insurance) and 65.12 (non-life insurance) by NACE.BG 2008 and accordingly classes 66.01 and 66.03 by NACE.BG 2003. Since 2008 the data are compiled by NACE.BG 2008.

The annual data of insurance enterprises are aggregated in classes (4-th sign by NACE.BG 2008 and by NACE.BG 2003.)

· National Classification of Economic Activities (NCEA-2003, for international use NACE.BG 2003) - in force till 31.12.2007;

· Classification of Economic Activities (CEA-2008, for international use NACE.BG 2008) - in force since 01.01.2008.

Insurance enterprises, classified in classes 65.11 and 65.12 by NACE.BG 2008 from 2008 onwards, and accordingly classes 66.01 and 66.03 by NACE.BG 2003 for the period 2005-2007.

The main SBS indicators are:

· "Number of enterprises" (11 11 0) - all enterprises which are registered, licensed and supervised as insurance enterprises at the end of the reference period. Branches of enterprises with head office in EEA countries are not covered.

· "Turnover" (12 11 0) - include Gross direct premiums written and Gross reinsurance premiums accepted.

· "Production value" (12 12 0) - Production value includes gross premiums earned plus investment income plus other income plus capital gains and provisions minus gross claims incurred.

· "Value added at factor cost" (12 15 0) - the difference between Production value and Purchases of goods and services (12 12 0 - 13 11 0).

· "Purchase of goods and services" (13 11 0) - equals to gross value of reinsurance services received (reinsurance balance and investment income of reinsurers on their share of the gross technical provisions of the enterprise) and other intermediate consumption.

· "Gross claims incurred" (32 13 0) - the sum of Gross claims payments and Gross change in the provision for outstanding claims.

· "Number of persons employed" (16 11 0) - All persons employed working in a given enterprise on full or part-time, including seasonal workers, home workers, working owners, employees under contract for management and control, employees in civil contracts that do not work with another employer and unpaid family workers. It does not include those absent for an unlimited time, as well as those provided under contract by other companies.

The basic unit of SBS survey is an insurance enterprise.

The insurance enterprise is an enterprise registered, licensed and supervised as insurance enterprise in accordance with actual legislation.

The SBS survey of insurance enterprises is exhaustive and the statistical population includes all enterprises classified in classes 65.11 and 65.12 by NACE.BG 2008 from 2008 onwards, and accordingly classes 66.01 and 66.03 by NACE.BG 2003 for the period 2005 - 2007.

The data refer to the activities of insurance enterprises carried out in the country, till reference 2013 without activities of branches of enterprises with head-office outside Bulgaria.

2005 - to the last reference year.

Not applicable.

· Number (enterprises, persons employed);

· Thousand BGN (all other indicators).

Calendar year.

European SBS Regulations:

· Regulation (EC) № 295/2008 of 11 March 2008 concerning SBS (recast);

· Regulation (EC) № 250/2009 of 11 March 2009 - definition of characteristics and technical format for the transmission of SBS data;

· Regulation (EC) № 251/2009 of 11 March 2009 - the series of data for SBS;

· Regulation (EC) № 223/2009 of 11 March 2009 - statistical confidentiality and transmission of confidential data to Eurostat;

· Regulation (EC) № 275/2010 of 30 March 2010 - criteria for the evaluation of the quality of SBS data;

· Regulation (EC) № 1893/2006 of 20 December 2006 - establishing NACE Rev.2;

· Regulation (EC) № 58/97 of 20 December 1996 - concerning SBS;

· Regulation (EC) № 2700/98 of 17 December 1998 - definition of characteristics, amended by Regulation (EC) № 1670/2003 of 1 September 2003;

· Regulation (EC) № 2701/98 of 17 December 1998 - the series of data for SBS, amended by Regulation (EC) № 1669/2003 of 1 September 2003;

· Regulation (EC) № 2702/98 of 17 December 1998 - technical format for the transmission of SBS data, amended by Regulation (EC) № 1668/2003 of 1 September 2003;

· Regulation (EC) № 1618/1999 of 23 July 1999 - criteria for the evaluation of the quality of SBS data;

· Regulation (EC) № 1614/2002 of 6 September 2002 - amending the definitions, data series and technical format;

· Regulation (EC) № 439/2014 of 29 April 2014 - amending the definitions, data series and technical format;

Bulgarian legislation:

· Law on Statistics;

· National Statistical Programme;

· Insurance Codex;

· Accounting and tax legislation.

The SBS data are provided to Eurostat in accordance with the SBS Regulations. The same data are used in data exchange under signed agreements, ensuring the protection of confidential information.

Regulation (EC) № 223/2009 of 11 March 2009 defines common criteria for protection of confidential data and methods for sending the information to and its use by Eurostat. The Law on Statistics ensures the protection of statistical confidentiality and the use of individual data of enterprises for statistical purposes only.

The individual (primary) data are confidential according to the Law on Statistics and European legislation. To ensure their protection and inability to be identified, the aggregated indicators are also defined as confidential when:

· Criterion A - the indicator is calculated from one or two enterprises;

· Criterion B - one enterprise forms 85% or more of the total value of this indicator.

The data are published in accordance with the deadline specified in the Release Calendar presenting the results of the statistical surveys carried out by the National Statistical Institute.

The calendar is available on the NSI website: http://www.nsi.bg/en/node/480

Data are published on the NSI website and are available to all users of statistical information.

Yearly.

The SBS data are available to all users of the NSI website under the heading Business statistics - Annual Business statistics - Structural Business Statistics - Financial Enterprises: http://www.nsi.bg/en/node/8189

Not available.

Information service on request, according to the Rules for dissemination of statistical products and services of NSI.

Eurostat's methodological manual concerning SBS data of insurance enterprises is based on the European legislation on SBS and the harmonised national legislation in the same field.

NSI annually provide to Eurostat quality report on SBS data of insurance enterprises with information for the reference year.

This includes the improvement of the collecting of primary data system, which ensures strict arithmetical and logical input control. The additional output control is made when are registered the big differences in the value of given indicator between two consecutive years.

This is made in accordance with the standard criteria for assessing the quality - relevance, accuracy and reliability, timeliness, comparability and coherence.

The main users of SBS data are:

· Eurostat and other international organisations;

· Interested state institutions under signed agreements;

· Research institutes, universities, economic analysts and students;

· Private non-governmental organisations, agencies, associations, media, etc.;

· Directorates and departments in the NSI.

There has been no study of user satisfaction, but no cases of outstanding requests for information are registered.

Full compliance with Bulgarian and EU legislation.

The information for calculation of the SBS data of insurance enterprises is based on annual account reports of insurance enterprises, as there is full commitment of input data.

The SBS survey of insurance enterprises is exhaustive and there are no sampling errors.

Not applicable.

The deadline for the publication of SBS data on national level and Eurostat the SBS data of insurance enterprises are send in t+18 months, where t is the reference year.

The deadlines under item 15.1 are strictly followed.

For state territory the data are geographical comparable.

The comparability of the data is limited by the use of different classifications of economic activities (NACE.BG 2008 and NACE.BG 2003), if there is a difference in the scope of the activity. The data series of insurance enterprises are fully comparable for the period 2005 - the last reference year.

Not applicable.

The SBS data of insurance enterprises are logically related with data obtained by account reports.

NSI of Bulgaria is making extraordinary efforts to reduce the respondents' burden. Developed by NSI off-line based system for collecting and processing of insurance enterprises reports and ensured methodological and technical assistance to respondents during the reporting campaign are highly appreciated by respondents and help to reduce their workload.

The National policy, as well as Eurostat's, allows the revision of already published data if there are serious reasons. Any revisions made in the national data are reflected in the aggregated data for the European Union.

The revised data replace the already published data as soon as possible after the revision is made.

The main data sources for calculating the SBS data of insurance enterprises are special "Annual report of activities of insurance enterprises" and administrative data from Financial Supervision Commission.

Yearly.

Exhaustively for all insurance enterprises covered in the SBS survey.

Data validation is made by additional logical input control and comparison between the output data and the results of the previous year and other surveys, carried out by NSI.

The survey is exhaustive and further data evaluation is not made.

Not applicable.