Regional insurer of the year - ING Central Europe

Since 1991, ING has shown itself to be consistently ahead of the game. It has displayed a healthy appetite for risk, in return for being the first to enter these high-growth markets. Those that come afterwards will have a much harder task

Even before the dissolution of the Soviet Union had been made official, with the signing of the Belavezha Accords in December 1991, ING had made it clear that it was very interested in moving into some of these newly democratised markets. Its first East European branch was established in Hungary in 1991, offering simple protection products to the emerging middle class. Since then, it has expanded into Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and even Russia. The more mature