The market positions of Europe’s 10 largest general insurers remained relatively static last year, a new ranking from Spanish researcher the Mapfre Foundation shows.

Allianz retained the top spot in the ranking, which is based on annual gross written premium (GWP). The German-based global insurer had GWP of €45 billion ($55 billion) last year.

This was followed by French group Axa, with GWP of €30 billion ($37 billion), Zurich with €25 billion ($31 billion) and Generali with €23 billion ($28 billion), with Dutch insurer Achmea (formerly Eureko) rounding out the top five with GWP of €16 billion ($20 billion).

Mapfre maintained its sixth place ranking from 2010, with GWP of €14 billion ($17 billion).

Munich Re’s general insurance arm, Ergo, jumped up one spot to 7th on GWP of €12 billion ($15 billion), at the expense of UK insurance group Aviva which dropped to 8th spot this year, despite increasing its GWP to €11 billion ($13 billion).

French company Groupama and the UK’s Royal & SunAlliance round out the top 10, with GWP of €11 billion ($13 billion) and €10 billion ($12 billion) respectively.

Overall, premium written by the top 10 European insurers increased 3% in 2011 to €198 billion ($242 billion).

Zurich writes the largest proportion of business outside of its home country, at 90%, followed by Axa and Allianz, which each derive 80% of their GWP from beyond their home market.