Abstract. The Romanian insurance market has passed through a permanent process of growth which ended up in 2004 to exceed the threshold of 1 billion Euros, in the frame of a small awareness and confidence of the population towards insurance, even now after 15 years. The globalization process of the financial markets affected also the Romanian market even before Romania became member of the European Union. The globalization brought about benefits (especially under the form of increase in the quality of the services provided to clients) but also disadvantages for local companies (significant costs in logistics and training in order to cope with the international groups).

Keywords: globalization; mergers; solvency; capitalization.