BAEZ (Bulgarian Export Insurance Agency): Excellence in Export Credit Liquidity Support Europe 2026
BAEZ, Bulgaria’s state export credit agency, issued a €3m guarantee on 5 June 2026 to reinsurers of motor third-party liability (MTPL) cover for the country’s international hauliers. Four days later the Financial Supervision Commission withdrew the licence of DallBogg: Life and Health for failing the Solvency II minimum capital requirement, its recovery plan refused. BAEZ puts DallBogg’s book at roughly 20,000 of Bulgaria’s 55,000 haulage trucks; cover had reached €3,300 a vehicle.
BAEZ holds no licence for MTPL or reinsurance, so it guarantees rather than underwrites: it meets delayed reinsurer payments and retains recourse for anything it pays. Its liability attaches only above a loss ratio of 120 to 150 per cent; below that, risk stays wholly with private reinsurers. It runs to 4 June 2027.
All 17 licensed companies were invited, competing on end-user price and commission; one took up the terms. Cover now renews at €2,000, with 1,204 trucks insured in the scheme’s first month. BAEZ annualises that to 15,000 vehicles and a €19.5m sector-wide saving. The process was open; delivery rests on one balance sheet.
Dual authority under the Insurance Code and Export Insurance Act lets BAEZ combine its own balance sheet with state-backed cover. It also guarantees 85 per cent of working-capital lending to smaller operators, taking only exposures performing before fuel costs rose: it insures the shock, not pre-existing distress. A proposed €250m cover for a large leasing company would free the same sum for new lending, though central-bank treatment of rescheduled exposures has slowed it.
Euro accession in January invites comparison with European peers, and this one stands up to it. What earns the recognition is construction and timing rather than scale: a bounded, recoverable guarantee, openly allocated and dated, available before the book needed re-placing. The construction travels; the loss of a dominant carrier is a risk any small market runs.
The Capital Finance International (CFI.co) Judging Panel congratulates BAEZ on winning the Excellence in Export Credit Liquidity Support Europe 2026 Award.
