FMHL gross premium firm in five months
Staff Reporter
First Mutual Holdings Limited (FMHL) Gross Premium Written (GPW) rose 494% to ZWL$3.92 billion during the five months to May 2021.
Douglas Hoto, the group chief executive, in a trading update said an estimated 40% of the revenue was US$ premium translated at the interbank rate.
In the Zimbabwe market, the forex premiums were US$9.2 million compared to US$1.5 million in the prior period as an increased number of clients were preferring to cover in US$ to limit the extend of shortfalls or excesses.
Net Premium Written (NPW) was ZWL$3.1 billion, up 504% on prior period.
The Net Premium Earned after adjusted for the UPR was ZWL$2.81 billion up 487% from ZWL$0.5 billion in prior period.
The growth numbers compared quite favorably with the annual inflation rate of 161.9% for the same period.
Total direct expenses were ZWL$1.8 billion an adverse variance of 567% on prior year in response to the benchmarking of costs to alternative market rates by service providers to give an underwriting result of ZWL$0.947bn compared to ZWL$0.187bn in prior period.
Rental income was ZWL$153.4 million leading to total other income of ZWL$ZWL$0.253bn.
Admin expenses at ZWL$0.837bn were up 471% with total expenses of ZWL$0.881bn leading to an operating profit of ZWL$318.1m compared to ZWL$98.5m in the prior period, a growth of 223%.
Investment income was ZWL$2.356bn, a growth of 348%. After factoring fair value adjustments and transfers of policyholder investment income, the profit before tax for the period was ZWL$1.363bn compared to ZWL$523m in prior period, a growth of 160% and just in line with annual inflation for the period.
