Helvetia, a Swiss insurance group, increased its profit in the first half and is on course with the implementation of its growth strategy launched last year.
Helvetia increased its underlying profit after tax to 258.4 million Swiss francs in the first six months of the year, an increase of 8.4 percent from the same period a year ago. The IFRS result was 210.1 million (up 13 percent), a figure that the company said was temporarily distorted by the accounting effects of the 2014 acquisitions
In the non-life business, the net combined ratio by 0.6 percentage points to 91.3 percent. Group-wide business volume was almost flat at 5.53 billion francs (down 0.2 percent from a year ago and up a currency-adjusted 0.3 percent).
More Agile and Innovative
Helvetia Chief Executive Philipp Gmuer said the company had had a «successful first half» and lauded the insurer’s progress with «Helvetia 20.20»: «This strategy is making Helvetia more agile, innovative and customer-focused. It is also creating the conditions needed for fully exploiting the opportunities offered by digitalization.»
The insurance group, which is based in St. Gallen, is developing a «Home» system to expand the current offering. Helvetia bought mortgage broker MoneyPark as part of the strategy.
The company also launched an SMS-chatbot for automatic insurance renewals in the first half, making it the first insurer in Europe to agree contracts on the basis of chatbots.
Ambitious Growth Plans
Helvetia wants to boost its business volume to 10 billion francs by 2020. The company last year had business worth 8.5 billion.
Helvetia also wants to retain the combined ratio below 93 percent in non-life business and a return on equity of 8 to 11 percent. The insurer in the first half had an annualized return on equity of 10.2 percent, compared with 9.4 percent a year ago.
