Some of this money has been spent on acquiring a company in Uzbekistan, he said. "The price of this deal was appealing for Ingosstrakh as a buyer," he said.

This is not the first year that talks are being held on buying a company in Kazakhstan, but current legislation only allows the direct purchase of an insurer in Kazakhstan on the basis of an intergovernmental agreement, which is being discussed but has not yet been signed, he said.

Such agreements open the door to the Kazakh insurance market for other Russian insurers also, such as Rosgosstrakh and SOGAZ, Grigoryev said.

Ingosstrakh plans to enter the insurance market in Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan. Grigoryev considers Ukraine, where the company already operates, to be an appealing and profitable market. There are Ingosstrakh subsidiaries in Belarus and Armenia also.

The traditional Ingosstrakh presence in European countries is becoming unjustified in terms of expenditures, he said. If the European Union adopt the Solvency-2 directive, SOFAG in Germany will need US$100 million in additional investment. Annual profit for the company, which has capital of around US$70 million, is 2 million euros.

Ingosstrakh is ready to sell SOFAG but has not begun any negotiations, Grigoryev said.

Half of the amount allocated for acquisitions, around US$120 million, will go toward possible acquisitions of regional insurance companies inside Russia. "We held talks and chose 14 regional insurers out of the most successful with a good position on the market and with a sufficiently large client base," Grigoryev said. However, the negotiations are difficult. Ingosstrakh has in some cases obtained a refusal to submit documents showing financial stability and in some cases non-transparent payment schemes are proposed, which Ingosstrakh will not agree to, he said.