Lower claims leave room for 26m-euro profit at VIG
Austrian insurer Vienna Insurance Group, which controls the
Omniasig, Asirom, BCR Asigurări and BCR Asigurări de Viaţă in
Romania, posted 25.9 million euro gross profit from the Romanian
operations in the first nine months, up 56% compared with the same
time last year. The growth is mainly due to the decline in claims
settled.
The gross profit stood at 11.6 million euros in the third quarter
alone, compared with a 14.3 million-euro profit in the first six
months of the year.
The profit went up even though the gross premiums underwritten by
the group in Romania fell by 13% compared with the same time of
last year, to 396 million euros.
Still the group managed to cut operating expenses and claims
settled locally at a faster pace than the revenues went down.
Therefore VIG posted 415.7 million euros in revenues in the first
nine months, down 12% compared with the corresponding period of
2009.
On the other hand, total spending fell by 15% to 390 million euros.
Claims settled dropped 18% to 262 million euros, while operating
spending was cut by 12% to 113 million euros.