Qatar Insurance (QIC) Group, the leading insurer in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena), has registered 2% year-on-year growth in gross written premiums (GWP) to QR12.8bn in 2019.
The group’s stable underwriting results and strong investment income translated into a consolidated net profit for 2019 of QR671mn compared to QR664mn in the previous year and it has recommended a cash dividend of 15%.
“In 2019, we were pleased with strong and profitable premium growth that we enjoyed in our core markets in the Mena region," according to Khalifa Abdulla Turki al-Subaey, group president of QIC Group.
QIC’s operations particularly benefited from the group’s strategic reallocation of capacity into lower volatility and higher frequency risks, such as its short-tail personal lines business.
In addition, growth was driven by the successful digitisation of QIC’s direct insurance business in the region. QIC’s global business namely, Antares, Qatar Re, QIC Europe (QEL) and the three Gibraltar based insurers acquired from the Markerstudy group continued the integration of its operations under QIC Global and now accounts for 76% of the group’s total premium base.
"The integration of our international business, Qatar Re, Antares, QEL and the three Gibraltar based insurance companies acquired from the Markerstudy Group is progressing on target. These developments reflect the success of our efforts to refocus our underwriting capacity on risks with a more favourable risk-return ratio, namely, our short-tail, personal lines business," al-Subaey said.
Qatar Re, QIC Group’s global multi-line reinsurer, has been ranked 26th amongst the global top 50 reinsurers, up from rank 35 in 2016, according to the Top 50 reinsurers’ ranking published by A M Best.
Despite continued geopolitical headwinds, the Mena markets continued to benefit from stronger economic growth and diversification in the region, the group said.
Driven by a healthy demand for personal lines, namely, motor and health insurance, QIC continued to maintain its leading position in the Mena region. The group’s retail operations, QIC Insured, and life and medical insurance subsidiary, QLM Life and Medical, continued to spearhead the digital transformation of the industry with the introduction of innovative products and integration of artificial intelligence.
The group’s net underwriting result was QR355mn against QR576mn in 2018. It reflects the prudent reserve strengthening policy applied across the international business, the impact of increase in reserves for the UK motor business in view of further revision of the Ogden discount rate by the UK government, and the impact of natural catastrophe losses experienced in the 2018 autumn due to the tropical cyclones, typhoons Faxai and Hagibis that caused landfall in Japan.
On the other hand, the direct business in Qatar and Mena continued to perform strongly, benefiting from enhanced efficiencies through the wider use of digital technologies.
QIC Group achieved an excellent investment income of QR1.08bn compared to QR0.86bn in 2018. On a year-to-year basis the return on investment excluding any one-off gains came at a healthy 4.4% against 4.3% for 2018.
The team’s outstanding investment performance is built on a careful diversification of the portfolio across geographies and investment classes, a company spokesman said.