AVIVA NDB sales mix points to growing sophistication of Sri Lankan customers

29 May 2012 05:23 am Views - 3888

-    Insurer records LKR 3 billion consolidated revenue in Q1 2012
-    Continued balanced 58/42 ratio of traditional and investment linked Life sales points to growing sophistication of customers
-    General  insurance GWP records  LKR 674 million and declining claims

Colombo, 29 May 2012: The unaudited financial results of AVIVA NDB Insurance presented for the three months ending 31 March 2012 recorded consolidated revenue amounting to LKR 3 billion.  Total Life sales in Gross Written Premium (GWP) terms were an encouraging LKR 1,615 million.  Continued decline in equity market conditions were offset by higher interest rates in bonds resulting in only a relatively small decline in sales volumes of investment linked products.  There was increased entry into the investment linked Secure Fund (bonds) both from new business as well as switching from the other two fund options of Balanced (mix of bonds and equity) and Growth (predominantly equity). Traditional products which are also entirely bond invested, recorded a growth of 4% compared to the previous year.

Shah Rouf, Managing Director of AVIVA NDB commented, “As well as the obvious move to security bonds represent, we are seeing customers who are positioning themselves in our investment linked funds to take advantage of the current relatively high interest rates while being in a position to move towards equity.  It’s a level of awareness that’s encouraging, given the strong fundamentals of the Sri Lankan economy to deliver long term growth.”  
He added that “It’s not all about investments and the rapid penetration of our health insurance product in our overall portfolio reflects the family protection priorities of our customers.”

General insurance reported a Gross Written Premium (GWP) of LKR 674 million and a continuing focus on quality business and underwriting as reflected by the decline in claims ratio to 65.8% from 74.3% at Q1 2011.

The Group reported unaudited consolidated profit after tax figure of LKR 63 million for Q1 2012.  On a like for like basis, excluding a significant contribution from one-off equity gains previous year, this represents an improvement of LKR 16 million over Q1 2011.  As is usual, profit after tax for the quarter excludes the surplus from the Life insurance business which is determined annually after the actuarial valuation and will be included in the audited accounts at financial year end in  December 2012.  
Chairman of AVIVA NDB, T.R. Ramachandran commenting on the results said:  “We have introduced several prudent and farsighted strategies to face the emerging trends in the prevailing business climate and are confident that these initiatives, particularly with regard to improved underwriting will ensure we achieve our targets in 2012”  

Shah Rouf was confident of delivering a good performance during the year. “We have termed 2012 our Hat-Trick year because we have been exceeding expectations since our historic transformation in 2010. This has inspired our Wealth Planners and will undoubtedly motivate them this year as well to complete our three years of target growth.”