Helvetia Insurance Reports Decreases in 2023: Big Natural Disasters
Helvetia Insurance Reports Decreases in 2023: Big Natural Disasters
Thu, Apr 11th 2024
Helvetia Insurance navigates a challenging 2023 with lower profits due to natural disasters and major losses.
KEYSTONE/Gian Ehrenzeller
Helvetia Insurance Group achieved a significantly lower profit in 2023 than in the previous year. The previous year’s result was still positively influenced by the profit from the sale of a company. The 2023 result was also impacted by high claims from natural disasters and major losses in the second half of the year.
Helvetia presented its annual financial statements for the past year in accordance with the new IFRS rules for the first time. Compared to the revised figures for the previous year, profit after tax fell by 37% to CHF 301.3 million, as the insurer announced on Thursday.
The company also reported an “underlying profit” for the first time. This amounted to CHF 372.5 million after CHF 492.9 million in the previous year.
Higher Business Volume
The insurer’s business volume increased to CHF 11.3 billion after CHF 11.2 billion in 2022. Adjusted for exchange rates, growth amounted to 7.2 percent. Growth was driven by the so-called “specialty markets”, but the non-life business also increased in all markets, the insurer emphasised.
Capitalization remains solid. The estimated SST ratio was “over 280%” at the beginning of 2024, compared to around 300% in the first half of 2023.
The dividend will be increased by 40 centimes to CHF 6.30 due to the profitable growth and strong capitalisation, it said.
Loss-making Third Quarter
In non-life insurance, Helvetia achieved currency-adjusted growth of just under 11%, with the Group outperforming the market in Switzerland, Spain and Austria. However, the cyclical “Specialty Markets” segment also benefited from a favourable environment and price increases, according to the report.
The underlying profit for the division fell by 31% to CHF 220.6 million due to the claims trend.
To a somewhat lesser extent, an accumulation of medium-sized claims and inflation effects also made themselves felt. Accordingly, the Group’s combined ratio deteriorated to 97.4% after 94.3% in the previous year.
Rising Fee Income
In the life business, the underlying profit rose by 13% to CHF 310.2 million with a slightly higher business volume. In new business, the insurer benefited from growth in reinsurance solutions and the positive effects of higher interest rates in the Europe segment.
The Contractual Service Margin (CSM) reported in accordance with the new accounting rules rose slightly year-on-year to CHF 4.03 billion (previous year: CHF 3.94 billion).
The insurer was able to further increase fee income, which rose to 390.5 million last year (2022: 350.9 million). This growth was mainly due to the expansion of non-insurance business in Spain.
Strategy Update
Helvetia’s results exceeded analysts’ expectations in terms of average business volume, but did not quite meet them in terms of IFRS net profit. Almost all experts expected the dividend to be at this level.
The company, which has been managed by Fabian Rupprecht since October, now wants to subject the current “Helvetia 2025” strategy to a review. Helvetia intends to present the results of this strategy review at a Capital Markets Day in December 2024.
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