QIC’s Group President Khalifa Abdulla Turki Al Subaey
Doha: Announcing results for the first nine months of 2020, Qatar Insurance Company (QIC), the leading insurer in Qatar and the Middle East North African (MENA) region, said yesterday that its gross Written Premiums grew by 4 percent to QR10.2bn during the period, primarily driven by hardening of rates in commercial insurance and reinsurance.
Following a meeting presided over by Sheikh Khalid bin Mohammed bin Ali Al Thani, Chairman and Managing Director, QIC’s Board of Directors approved the Group’s 9-month 2020 financial results.
In addition, QIC’s lead position in its domestic online personal lines business paid off well as customers transacted through to the company’s digital platform. QIC’s financial results for the reporting period were adversely affected by the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on global economies and financial markets.
The COVID-19 pandemic has a significant impact on the industry, affecting insurers’ top line, underwriting results and investment returns. Despite the prevailing headwinds, QIC’s year-on-year premium growth to QR10.2bn is attributable to the hardening of premium rates in the commercial insurance market and the continued expansion of our domestic online business, which delivered stable returns.
QIC’s international carriers successfully continued their acknowledged strategy to expand in select low volatile lines of business while moderating their exposure in high severity classes. Today, QIC’s international business accounts for approximately 75 percent of the Group’s well diversified domestic and international book of business.
QIC’s Group President, Khalifa Abdulla Turki Al Subaey noted, “QIC Group benefits from its very strong and robust risk-based capital adequacy in combination with the scale and diversification of our business portfolio. We are encouraged by the resilience that QIC Group has demonstrated in these unprecedented times.”
“While consumers and businesses in major economies were in lockdown, we continued to generate strong organic growth originating from our online personal insurance business in the MENA region, a clear testimony to the strength and goodwill of the QIC brand and the trust and confidence customers place in the Group. The growth was further benefited from the hardening of commercial rates,” he added.
Alongside these developments, QIC’s domestic and MENA operations continued to drive forward the digitization of its personal lines business, cementing its position as a leader in the regional markets. In fact, during the lockdown, QIC’s personal insurance division - QIC Insured and QIC’s life and medical insurance subsidiary, QLM Life & Medical Insurance Company (QLM) were able to capitalise on its highly sophisticated digital distribution, client management and operational platform, generating stable volume growth whilst delivering robust returns.
However, the underwriting performance of QIC Global, namely, Qatar Re, Antares, QIC Europe Limited, and the Gibraltar-based insurance companies, was negatively impacted by COVID-19 and the lockdown in key economies. For the first nine months of 2020, the Group’s net underwriting loss stood at QR83m.
Despite the exceptional volatility in global financial markets, QIC’s investment portfolio performed reasonably well. QIC achieved a net investment income of QR454m during 9-month 2020.
During the period, QIC’s continued endeavour towards process efficiency and automation resulted in further improvement of its already exceptionally low administrative expense ratio for its core operations of 6 percent for the first 9 months of 2020 as compared to 6.4 percent during 9-month 2019. Overall, the consolidated net loss of Group for 9 months came in at QR131m.
QLM Life and Medical Insurance Company, QIC’s Life & Medical business has further expanded global medical network. By the end of third quarter 2020 its network includes 75,000 medical facilities, such as hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres and pharmacies in 103 countries across six continents.
