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Total assets of euro area insurance corporations increased marginally to €7,966 billion in the second quarter of 2018, from €7,964 billion. Debt securities accounted for 41.4% of the sector's total assets in the second quarter. Holdings of debt securities decreased to €3,301 from €3,320 billion. Net sales of debt securities amounted to €6 billion in the second quarter, price and other changes amounted to €13 billion. The year-on-year growth rate of debt securities held was 0.6%.
Looking at holdings by issuing sector, debt securities issued by general government in the euro area amounted to €1,558 billion in the second quarter of 2018, representing 47.2% of total debt securities held. The year-on-year growth rate of holding of debt securities issued by general government was 0.8%. The majority of euro area government bonds held were issued in the country in which the insurance corporation is located. These amounted to €1,049 billion, compared with €509 billion of investments in other euro area countries' debt securities. Holdings of debt securities issued by euro area monetary financial institutions (MFIs) amounted to €441 billion or 13.4% of total debt securities held.
The second largest category of holdings (26.4%) was investment fund shares including money market fund shares. These increased to €2,099 billion in the second quarter of 2018, from €2,065 billion in the previous quarter, with net purchase of €22 billion, while price and other changes accounted for €13 billion. The year-on-year growth rate in the second quarter was 6.3%.
In terms of main liabilities, total insurance technical reserves of insurance corporations amounted to €6,049 billion in the second quarter, up from €6,020 billion in the first quarter. Life insurance technical reserves accounted for 90.8% of total insurance technical reserves in the second quarter. Unit-linked products amounted to €1,181 billion, accounting for 21.5% of total life insurance technical reserves.