Khalifa Abdulla Turki Al Subaey, Group President of QIC
DOHA: Qatar Insurance Group has reported a stable underwriting results and strong investment income which translated into a consolidated net profit of QR671m for 2019 against QR664m for the previous year.
In 2019, QIC recorded growth in gross written premiums (GWP) of 2 percent to QR12.8bn compared to QR12.6bn for the same period of the previous year (2018).
QIC’s Board of Directors in their meeting reviewed the company’s performance along with the financial information for the year ended 2019 and has recommended a cash dividend of 15 percent (2018: 15 percent) from the share par value, i.e. QR 0.15 for each share.
The QIC Group has been able to maintain a lean and efficient organisation. In 2019, the Group’s continued endeavour towards further streamlining and automating of its processes resulted in a healthy operational expense ratio of 6.5 percent.
Qatar Insurance Group, the leading insurer in the Mena region yesterday announced its financial results for 2019. Following a meeting of the Board of Directors, which was presided over by Sheikh Khalid bin Mohammed bin Ali Al Thani, Chairman & Managing Director, the Board approved the financial results for the year 2019.
Khalifa Abdulla Turki Al Subaey, Group President of QIC Group said: “In 2019, we were pleased with strong and profitable premium growth that we enjoyed in our core markets in the MENA region. At the same time, the integration of our international business, Qatar Re, Antares, QIC Europe (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 favorable risk-return ratio, namely, our short-tail, personal lines business. Moreover, in the MENA region, we are spearheading the digitization of our industry, thereby increasing our operational efficiency while strengthening our client relationships.”
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 digitization of QIC’s direct insurance business in the region.
Despite continued geopolitical headwinds, the Mena markets continued to benefit from stronger economic growth and diversification in the region. 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 & 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 came in at QR355m, as compared to QR576m in 2018. This reflects the prudent reserve strengthening policy applied across the international business, the impact of increase in reserves for our UK motor business in response to the further revision of the Ogden discount rate by the UK Government, and the impact of natural catastrophe losses experienced in the autumn of 2019 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 QR1,084m, as compared to QR863m in 2018. On a year-to-year basis the return on investment excluding any one-off gains came at a healthy 4.4 percent, compared with 4.3 percent for 2018. The team’s outstanding investment performance is built on a careful diversification of the portfolio across geographies and investment classes.
As part of a smooth transition and succession planning at the executive management level, on January 13, 2020, the Board approved the recommendation of Khalifa A Al Subaey, the Group President & CEO and appointed Salem Khalaf Al Mannai as the Group CEO of Qatar Insurance Group.
