Mumbai: State-owned reinsurance major General Insurance Corp. of India Ltd (GIC Re) on Monday posted Rs672.76 crore net profit for the quarter to December driven by better combined ratio which improved to 101.1% and better returns from investment.
The reinsurer had reported a net loss of Rs400.99 crore in the same quarter last year. This is the first earnings announcement by the company after its listing on 25 October 2017 after a Rs11,176 crore initial public offer (IPO), making it the biggest public offering in seven years and the third largest after Coal India and Reliance Power.
But on debut day the GIC Re counter slumped close to 15 days slumped after its issue price was fixed at Rs912. “We had an exceptionally good quarter due to the improvement in the combined ratio which stood at 101.1 per cent from 105.9 per cent earlier. Profit also grew as all the verticals, including motor, marine and fire among others, performed well. Our investment income also improved apart from a reduction in the claims ratio, which added to the profits,” Alice Vaidyan, chairman and managing director told reporters in Mumbai.
Looking at this trend, the company is looking at closing the current fiscal on a high, she added. Incurred claims ratio improved to 90% during the reporting quarter, against 100.1% in the same period last year. The overall claims stood at Rs6,000 crore.
Investment income grew by over 35% to Rs1,195.59 crore from Rs883.94 crore a year-ago. Gross premium also grew by over 8% to Rs8,869.98 crore from Rs8,205.53 crore. In the first nine months of the fiscal year, net profit jumped five-fold to Rs2,481.99 crore from Rs554.82 crore, she said, adding gross direct premium income grew 36.8% with premium of Rs33,274.35 crore in the nine months to December from Rs24,323.61 crore.
For the nine months of the current fiscal, investment income rose 28.4% to Rs3,611.85 crore from Rs2,811.85 crore. Talking about segments, she said, the fire business grew 20.1% with a gross premium of Rs6,978.57 crore for the first nine months. Similarly, agriculture premium grew 72.7% to Rs12,120.78 crore over the past year, and health premium went up 28.2% to Rs4,042.32 crore.
Motor and marine premia grew 27.6% and 14.6%, respectively. Talking about the future plan, Vaidyan said the company, which is the 12th largest reinsurer globally, is targeting to be among the top 10 by year to March.
In the general reinsurance segment, GIC Re is already the eighth largest player globally, she added. The GIC Re counter closed barely unchanged at Rs746.00, up 0.11% in the run-up to the earnings announcement on the BSE whose benchmark Sensex rallied 0.87%.