An increase in first quarter reported net income has given one insurer reason to smile.
Zurich Insurance Group has reported a business operating profit of $1.52 billion and net incomes of $1.41 billion for the first quarter of the year – what Chief Financial Officer George Quinn describes as a solid start to the year.
“We see some early positive signs in the execution of our strategic targets for 2014 to 2016 but there is still much to do,” says Quinn. “As announced in March, we are implementing a program to streamline the company, removing management layers between Group and the business units and empowering our people to act decisively in delivering first-class services to our customers.”
Zurich’s net income for the three months ending March 31 was up 20 per cent, or $228.4 million over the prior year quarter, while its business operating profit climbed $32.6 million over last year.
“Global Life is progressing as planned and the development trend at Farmers is positive,” says Quinn, “while our General Insurance business reported a good Combined Ratio, benefitting from a relatively benign catastrophe environment and a one-off pension gain.”
Zurich’s General Insurance business saw a $41.3 million increase in business operating profit to $919 million. Gross written premiums and policy fees remained flat compared with the same quarter of 2013.
The net underwriting result increased by $96.8 million to $496 million, with a reported combined ratio of 93.9 per cent, compared with 94.9 per cent in Q1 of the previous year.
Zurich’s Farmers business operating profit was stable at $451.4 million, while Global Life’s business operating profit increased by $2.2 million to $346.9 million.
