HOW WE HAS CHANGED IN INSURANCE

If we express all the amounts in euros for 2019, that is, we eliminate the role of inflation, we will find that the Spanish GDP, in half a century, has multiplied by 4.2, while the population has multiplied by 1.4. However, insurance revenues have grown much more: globally, they have multiplied by 11; by ten those of the compulsory automobile insurance; for 24 those of health; and no less than 60 life insurance premiums. This means that Spaniards cover our backs with insurance between 10 and 60 times more than our grandparents.

Successes such as that of the television series Cuéntame are a good demonstration that today's Spaniards have a high curiosity about what life was like decades ago; for example, half a century. This has made us think that, in reality, insurance also has its own Tell me how we have changed; because, the truth is, in half a century we have changed a lot. We are going to tell you some things.

From indemnity insurance to service insurance

Another thing that has been turned around like a sock is the level of service. Half a century ago, compulsory car insurance took care of 180,000 accidents; today it takes care of about three million; The automobile insurance of today, then, has already performed on January 21 of each year the same services that it provided in the entire annuity half a century ago. Likewise, health insurance was responsible for the services contracted in 1.4 million policies; today there are 7.8 million contracts. Finally, funeral insurance attended 179,000 burials, but today it attends 275,000.

In the period, the population has grown at an average annual rate of 0.7%. Car policyholders, however, have grown six times faster than that rate each year; those of health, five times faster; death rates, twice as fast; and the life insured, finally, have grown nine times faster than the population itself.

The difference between the growth rates of the population and of insurance clients gives a good measure of the enormous socioeconomic change that has taken place in Spain in these five decades.

Why has insurance grown so much, even outpacing the economy and the population? Well, there are several reasons for this.

First, as a society grows richer, the things it wants to protect are more, or more valuable.

For the creation of new insurance and coverage. For example, half a century ago there was no home insurance as we know it today.

For legal reasons. The main one in this period was the entry of Spain into the European Economic Community, which meant assuming the minimum insurance limits for compulsory automobile insurance, much higher than those then in force in Spain.

In general, terms, because insurance, half a century ago, was very little present in Spanish society and economy. In fact, after all this road, still, to this day, Spanish insurance is still less dense than that of the main European countries.

Next stop, the year 2060