‘Excellent’ 2007 results for Zurich

by David Masters

Story link: ‘Excellent’ 2007 results for Zurich

Zurich has reported its results for 2007, with net income rising 22.3% to $5.6 billion.

Their gross written premiums and policy fees were up 4% on the previous year, increasing to $35.7 billion. Their combined ration fell 1.7% to 95.6%.

In a statement about the results, the company said that they had experienced healthy growth in their personal lines business, and that they had continued to improve their distribution capabilities.

And in spite of softening rate environments in both the UK and the US, the company said that they had improved their business operating profit by 6.4%, helped by a retention rate of 90%.

The statement by Zurich read: “While overcoming extreme weather in Europe, General Insurance leveraged selective growth and continued application of ‘The Zurich Way’ to increase its business operating profit by $220m to $4bn.

“Reserve releases from earlier years had a favorable impact of 2.8 percentage points compared with 2006, leading to an overall combined ratio of 95.6%, an increase of 1.7 percentage points.”

The UK floods and storm Kyrill resulted in a 2.5% rise in loss ratios for the company. Increased investments, charges in business mix and higher commission levels put the expense ration up 1.3%. However, the company added that “conservative reserving practices” had had a positive effect on these ratios.

CEO of Zurich, James Schiro, said of the results: “We may be operating in a difficult market environment, but the strength of our balance sheet, the diversity of our risk portfolio and our ability to execute on our strategy delivered excellent results in 2007, and make us confident in our ability to continue driving success going forward.”