Law Union & Rock Insurance Plc has continued on the trend of improved earnings among publicly traded securities as the company posted half year earnings, which were slightly better than its figures in the half year of 2017.
The insurance firm grew its profit after tax for H1 2018 to N364.2 million from N318.7 million in H1 2017, recording a growth of around 14.4 percent. This surge in profit occurred despite low gross premium underwriting growth.
Although gross premium underwritten increased marginally from N2.73 billion in H1 2017 to N2.79 billion in H1 2018, net premium income increased significantly by around N200 million from N1.21 billion in H1 2017 to N1.41 billion in H1 2018, a change of around 16 percent. The uptick in net premium income was primarily aided by the significant drop in premiums ceded to reinsurers, which fell from -N947 million to -N731 million. The savings of around N236 million helps explain a similar increase in net premium income during the first six months of 2018.
Investment income also rose significantly from N394.8 million to N488.9 million as total assets increased by around N400 million from N10.03 billion to N10.43 billion. The growth in investment income could be attributed to a rebalancing of the capital allocation of the firm.
The company reduced its cash pile from N3 billion in H1 2017 to N2.6 billion in H1 2018 and increased its investment securities holdings from N3.12 billion in H1 2017 to N3.52 billion in H1 2018. Again the change in both cash holdings and security holdings were around N400 million.
Law Union & Rock Insurance recently released more retail products to meet the need of its customers. The new products are travel insurance card and Teen Personal Accidents (TPA). This is part of the Company’s ongoing efforts to deepen penetration and reach a larger population of consumers.
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Olasupo Sogelola, executive director, Technical/Operations, Law Union & Rock had said the introduction of the two products was part of the company’s strategic plans to meet the need of its retail customers.
According to him, the Teen Personal Accident otherwise called (TPA) was the company’s innovation, but has now been repackaged in four variants with premium ranging from as low as five hundred naira. The new variants provide customers with the benefit options depending on the customers’ choice.
The policy provides a cover for children of age between two and twenty-five years. The benefits include medical expenses and permanent disability resulting from accidents sustained by the insured child within and outside their school premises.
NAICOM has also granted the company an approval to underwrite Travel Insurance Card, a retail policy for regular travellers within Nigeria. With as low as seven hundred naira only, a traveller would be covered against accident arising in the course of his/her traveling by road, rail, water or air.
The product comes in four variants – drivers travel card, passengers travel card, students travel card and executives travel card. The policy benefits, which include medical expenses, emergency care, accidental death and permanent disability is expected to provide succour to the accident victims/family and also reduce the level of uninsured economic losses from accident in the country.
Law Union and Rock Insurance of Nigeria Plc offer life and non-life insurance services in Nigeria.
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