Financial News

Aviva Ireland reports 13% rise in operating profit

By Business & Finance
05 March 2015
Aviva

The Irish arm of global insurance company Aviva, which announced its financial results this morning, have reported a 13% rise in operating profits for 2014, rising from €61m to €69m.

Aviva Ireland also reported a significant rise in cash remittance (up 19%); value of new business (in the life and pensions section the company reported  30% increase); and combined operating ratio, which improved by 2.6%.

Speaking at the announcement this morning, Hugh Hessing, Aviva Ireland CEO said: “Today’s results show that Aviva Ireland continues to improve its performance. Profit across the three businesses was up by 13% to €69m. We returned €96m to Group, up 20% on last year.

“In our general insurance business, we grew gross written premium and policy count for the first time in eight years. Our combined operating ratio, our key measure for profitability in general insurance, improved by 2.6 percentage points to 96.6% despite the increase in claims costs in the market. Continued focus on expense management and net profitable growth contributed to a 1% increase in profit to €29m despite the impact of weather related claims in Q1 2014. The impact of weather was in line with our reserving. Our customer satisfaction scores increased by 13 points.”

Hessing added: “Our life business had a good focused performance with operating profits of €28m up 7% on last year. The value of new business, the future profit expected on business written last year, grew significantly in 2014, up 30% to €13m, driven by a continued focus on protection and annuity business. Protection sales increased by 58%. The new AIMS (Aviva Investors Multi Strategy Fund) fund has attracted investment of €38m since its launch last October. We successfully completed the transfer of our life portfolio and this business is now a branch of the UK. This significantly reduces our capital requirement making our business in Ireland more sustainable.

“Against an uncertain regulatory environment and challenging market conditions, our health business delivered profit of €12m, down by 34% on last year. The combined operating ratio was 95.7% in line with last year’s performance. This reflects effective claims management. Customer retention levels were strong, reflecting the quality and competitiveness of Aviva’s health policies. held up well in a highly competitive market. Our product innovation, particularly in the corporate channel, led to some significant new corporate clients.

“Our results show that Aviva Ireland ended 2014 in a good position. We have more to do and we have a clear strategy in place to build on our performance in 2015.  We are investing in the simplificaltion of our business and in pricing sophistication. We will seek to take full advantage of our position as the only composite insurer in the market for the benefit of our customers and our partners.

“We believe we are well placed to take full advantage of the strong and broadly based recovery now underway in the Irish economy.”