30th Jul 2018 08:30
LONDON (Alliance News) - Specialist insurer Hiscox Ltd said Monday its profit in the first half of the year increased with "strong growth" in gross premiums written, with all of its segments contributing.
For six months ended June 30, the FTSE 250-listed company's pretax profit increased 27% to USD163.6 million from USD129.1 million the year before.
Hiscox's gross premiums written increased 21% to USD2.23 billion from USD1.84 billion a year before. Despite this, the company's net asset value per share decreased to 648.4 pence from 657.7 pence.
Net premium earned increased to USD1.28 billion from USD1.18 billion with a group combined ratio of 88%, down from 91%. The lower the ratio the more profitable an insurer's underwriting.
Hiscox experienced USD8.5 million foreign exchange losses, down from a USD38.8 million hit suffered in the previous year.
The company's Retail segment increased its gross premiums written to USD1.11 billion from USD930.4 million with a 91% combined ratio.
Hiscox hiked its interim dividend by 5% to USD0.13.
Looking ahead, the company said it is "working hard" to transform its underlying infrastructure to cope with the impact of Brext, General Data Protection Regulation and IFRS 17 accounting standards, among other things.
Hiscox believes that its finance and IT infrastructure projects position it favourably as it looks to grow its market share.
Chief Executive Officer Bronek Masojada said: "It has been a good start to the year. Our investment across the business is driving strong profitable growth in all segments. We are on track to exceed one million retail customers in 2018."
Shares in Hiscox were up 6.7% Monday at 1,571.00 pence each.
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