By Anthony Areh
Cornerstone Insurance Plc on Thursday said it, along with its subsidiaries, made N13.05 billion as Gross Premium Written (GWP) for the year ended 2019, representing an increase of 13 per cent over year 2018.
This is contained in a statement from the Company’s Chairman, Mr Segun Adebanji, at the end of the firm’s 28th Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Lagos.
Adebanji said that the premiums from life insurance accounted for 32.5 per cent of the gross premium written, an increase of 25 per cent compared to the previous year.
According to him, the bonds, engineering and accident contibuted largely to general business gross premium written amounting to N2.12 billion, with oil and gas amounting to N2.04 billion while motor insurance had N1.36 billion.
He said that the company’s continued growth in special risk lines, especially in the power, aviation, and oil and gas sectors, was a testament to the confidence its customers and partners had in it.
Adebanji said the confidence of the customers and partners centred on the firm’s technical underwriting expertise, which it had continued to strengthen.
“Our investment portfolios yielded positive performance figures, driven mainly by trading activities on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and fixed income securities.
“Also, the profit from continuing operations of a joint venture arising mainly from the gains on disposal of investment property and overall investment activities contributed a total of N4.8 billion to the group performance,” he said.
Adebanji said that the firm’s Net claims ratio for the year under review stood at 47 per cent .
He said that the figure had been relatively stable since the company put in place stricter risk acceptance parameters.
The chairman said the company consequently ended the year with a Profit Before Tax of N4.01 billion, an increase of 22 per cent over the previous year .
“Worthy of note is the improvement of our marginal surplus from N102 million in 2018 to N4.9 billion in the year under review.
” This takes our solvency margin to 198 per cent, almost double the regulatory benchmark.
“Cash and cash equivalent balances also rose from N4.22 billion to N12.64 billion, thus greatly improving our liquidity,” he said.
The firm’s chairman explained that the board of directors of the firm recommended the transfer of N1.72 billion from the company’s share premium account to the share capital account.
He said this was done by issuing bonus shares in the proportion of seven new shares of 50 kobo each for every 30 existing shares of 50 kobo each.
Adebanji said the decision was taken to achieve the company’s recapitalisation plan, which was a request granted by the shareholders.
He said that while the COVID-19 pandemic had affected global businesses, the firm would persevere through the challenging times and continue to support its customers and intermediaries in managing their risks.
The chairman said the company would also sustain its corporate social responsibility initiative in support of the state and federal governments.
