Insurance market of the Russian Federation: assessment and priority development directions

The article explores main quantitative and qualitative indicators of the insurance market of the Russian Federation (RF) for 2010-2019 that indicate uneven development of insurance relations. It defines the need to focus on a new model of the insurance business. During the study period, there was the transformation of the insurance market with a significant change in the structure of insurance premiums. At the same time, universal offers of insurance programs and a high concentration of fees in the Central Federal District were maintained. The present unevenness slows down the insurance market development and causes the overcoming of structural and territorial imbalances. To reduce the latter, it is necessary to actively use new insurance products and technologies of digital sales. The increase of the insurance culture and financial literacy of economic agents may contribute to the further growth of the insurance market while simultaneously activating insurers’ actions to generate consumer demand. The article hypothesizes that it is possible to overcome trends of uneven and inertial development of the RF insurance market by strengthening digital insurance and actively implementing programs focused on personal needs of clients. Considering the global trend of the economy’s digitization, it is necessary to strengthen state control over informational risks and to regulate insurance fraud. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to justify development directions of the RF insurance market within a customer-oriented and digital model of the insurance business. Main objectives: to review theoretical approaches to the insurance market functioning and to generalize modern development problems in Russia; to evaluate dynamics of main indicators and the level of insurance digitalization; to define directions and conditions for further development of the insurance market. The novelty of the work is the overview of main trends of the RF insurance market development that indicate a slowdown in its growth and the persistence of imbalances in insurance, the reasons for which are: low level of insurance digitalization, insufficient innovations in the insurance business and individual insurance programs, based on insurers’ special demand. The practical significance of the research is the possibility to use the results as a methodological basis in the educational process and a scientific discussion and to improve the - ficiency of management decisions concerning the control and regulation of insurance relations in government administration bodies.