Profits/Losses of Insurance Companies and Pension Funds
Methodology | Contents |
The publication contains selected fundamental indicators on insurance (CZ-NACE, rev.1, code 66). Two basic types of businesses belong to this sector:
- insurance companies – they keep books in accordance with the chart of accounts for insurance companies. Their principal activity divides them into
- life insurance (CZ-NACE 6601)
- non-life insurance (CZ-NACE 6603);
- pension funds – they use the chart of accounts for banks and are classified to CZ-NACE 6602.
The data result from the processing of the quarterly statistical questionnaires Poj 3a-04 and Poj 3b-04. Regardless of the number of their employees, all of the businesses incorporated in the business register with insurance as the principal activity are obliged to fill in these questionnaires: Poj 3a-04 (insurance companies) and Poj 3b-04 (pension funds). If a business fails to submit the filled-in questionnaire for any reason, then the data for such a business are calculated by means of mathematical statistical methods, in which data they provided before or administrative data (e.g., on the number of employees) are used. Using expert guesses is permitted, where a business cannot provide a value of an indicator accurately according to the methodological notes attached to the questionnaire.
When current quarter data are processed, data for the previous period are corrected retroactively with regard to the questionnaires provided after the deadline for the previous quarter or to corrections submitted by reporting units. Hence, the data for the previous period may differ from those released before. Definitive corrections of quarterly data are carried out on the basis of comparisons with annual data reported on annual questionnaires Poj 5a-01 (insurance companies) and Poj 5b-01 (pension funds). This implies that data for 2002 were corrected according to more exact annual data and were used for corrections in this publication for the 4th quarter of 2004.
Notes on the tables
The indicators on insurance companies and pension funds are listed in Tables 1 to 7 and 8 to 12, respectively.
Index – shows development in comparison with the corresponding period of the previous year (%).
The concept of natural person includes individuals (citizens) and self-employed persons (entrepreneurs, traders, free professions), not incorporated in the business register.
The contents of the indicators presented in the tables mostly correspond to the names of accounts or account groups according to the chart of accounts for insurance companies and pension funds.
Table 1. Employees, wages
Average registered number of employees – all permanent and temporary employees (regardless of their nationality), who have contracts of employment with their employers (in cooperatives persons – members of the cooperative with contracts of employments, too) and receive wages from the employer for the work they do. It doesn’t matter, whether they are really present at work or not (e.g., for illness, holiday, military training, etc.). Persons such as women on maternity and child-care leaves, persons in military service (including the compulsory community service), apprentices and students on practice, persons working on the basis of contracts for work or fixed job contracts, etc. are not included here.
The average number of employees in actual persons is calculated as the arithmetic mean of average numbers of employees in individual months.
Conversion to full-time equivalent persons is carried out for part-time employees.
Wages (excl. OPC – other personal costs) - both financial and non-financial remuneration (wages in kind) provided by employers to employees for work. They include scale wages and salaries, personal assessments, extra pays and supplementary charges and other similar pays, premiums and various remunerations, compensations for wages and salaries, remuneration for being on-call. Wages in kind also include the relevant share of the acquisition costs of motor vehicles provided to employees by employers for personal and business purposes. Wages also include remuneration for work paid, as decided by the employer, from disposable profits, remuneration fund or any other fund created from disposable profits.
Other personal costs (OPC) are not included in wages. The wages are gross wages charged to be paid.
Other personal costs (OPC) – remunerations for work done on the basis of other than labour, service or member relationships to the employer. They mostly include remuneration for work done on the basis of other than contract of employment, remuneration based on copyright, severance payments, remuneration to board members (except for royalties paid from profits), remuneration to apprentices, etc.
Table 4. Basic data on tangible and intangible fixed assets
Acquisition of tangible and intangible fixed assets includes expenses spent during the reference quarter on the acquisition of these assets by
a) purchasing or by own activity
b) acquiring rights to intellectual creative activity results
c) by free acquisition or transfer in accordance with legal regulations or by transfer from personal use to business use. Acquisition of tangible fixed assets includes expenses spent gradually or all at once regardless of whether the fixed asset was put in use in the quarter or not. The acquisition also includes the value of fixed assets financially leased, at the level of their initial value (not repayments). (It concerns financial leasing contracts whose date of the beginning of maturity falls in the reference quarter.)
Acquisition of intangible fixed assets, total – includes
- expenses on starting a new business,
- intangible results of research and similar activities not subjected to industrial and
other valuable rights
- software,
- know-how,
- licences,
- subjects of industrial rights and other results of intellectual creative activity, which
are subjects of valuable rights acquired and provided
Acquisition of tangible fixed assets (excl. land) - data are derived from totals on the debit side of accounts, which register purchases of tangible fixed assets (depending on the chart of accounts and the book-keeping methods the reporting units use), or from respective property accounts (if the purchased fixed assets was accounted directly on this account). Only the aggregate of items charged in the reference period is given (not totals from the beginning of year).
Buildings, halls and constructions, machinery, instruments, equipment and inventory, means of transport – expenses mentioned in these lines include the acquisition of both new fixed assets (regardless of the country origin) and imported fixed assets used abroad already, regardless whether the fixed assets were imported by an investor or a third person (from the viewpoint of the Czech Republic this property is considered to be new). Costs associated with the implementation of technical improvement of an existing fixed asset or with a technical reclamation of land belong here as well. Expenses on the acquisition of buildings and constructions are shown exclusive of the value of land.
Sales and free transfers of tangible and intangible fixed assets (excl. land) – where tangible or intangible fixed assets were transferred to another user free, net book value (difference between acquisition costs and depreciation) was included here.