European insurers and reinsurers held €1.185 trillion in private credit and private equity at the end of 2025, according to a new EIOPA factsheet. The combined exposure represented approximately 11% of their total assets.
The denominator matters. EIOPA’s percentages describe shares of total assets, not shares of investment portfolios. Private credit accounted for about 5.0% of total assets and private equity for about 6.3%.
Different business models, different mixes
The aggregate does not imply that every insurer holds the same allocation. EIOPA reports that life insurers are more oriented toward private credit, while reinsurers, non-life insurers and composite firms have relatively greater private-equity exposure. Unit-linked exposure was described as contained.
Those differences are consistent with the fact that asset choices are shaped by liability duration, liquidity needs, product design and the way investment risk is borne. A long-duration credit exposure may interact differently with a life insurer’s liabilities than a private-equity allocation does with a non-life or reinsurance balance sheet.
What the factsheet can and cannot show
The factsheet provides a sector-level map of exposures at a point in time. It does not, by itself, determine valuation quality, liquidity under stress or the risk of a particular fund, loan or insurer. Those questions require information about underlying assets, leverage, cash-flow terms, concentration, collateral, governance and liability matching.
The figures are therefore most useful as a scale and composition reference. They show that private assets are material enough to warrant supervisory attention, while also warning against treating “private assets” as a single risk category.
Further supervisory work could change classifications or add more detail. Any comparison with other datasets should first align the reporting perimeter, reference date and denominator.
Sources and methodology
All values are taken from EIOPA’s factsheet announcement and retain its end-2025 reference date. Percentages are reported against total assets; rounded components may not sum perfectly to the rounded combined share.