In the first half of this year, insurance companies persisted in placing the largest part of their investments in foreign assets, despite the outperformance of the Greek economy over the last 18 months compared to the Eurozone and against the estimates that the country will recover in the year the investment grade.

According to data from the Bank of Greece (see related table), on June 30, 2023, insurance companies had placed only 35.5% of their financial investments in Greek assets, while the remaining 64.5% related to deposits and securities foreign.

The report of the Bank of Greece is typical that "the value of the total investments of insurance companies in debt securities (bonds, interest-bearing notes, etc.) decreased to 10,503 million euros at the end of the second quarter of 2023, against 10,586 million .euro in the previous quarter. This development is mainly due to liquidations of Greek Government bonds, which were partially compensated by purchases of securities of countries outside the eurozone".

In particular, during the first half of this year, there were outflows of 417 million euros in domestic debt securities (-198 million in Q1 and -219 million in Q2) and corresponding inflows of 258 million euros in foreign debt securities.

At the same time, with regard to the placements of insurance companies in shares of mutual funds, during the first half of this year capital inflows of 95 million were observed in Greek A/Cs and 193 million euros in Foreign A/Cs.

Overall, the asset structure of insurance companies has defensive characteristics. Thus, on 30/6/2023, 5.2% concerned deposits, while 53.9% were placed directly in fixed-income securities (corporate and government bonds, promissory notes, etc.) and an additional very important percentage indirectly through the ownership of shares of mutual funds (23.9%).

In contrast, stocks constituted just 4.7% of assets, despite the significant rise in Greek bond valuations.