Baloise insurance company increased its profit last year and will share the spoils with its owners. The company, which has already launched a series of digital offerings said it will continue down that path.

Net income at Basel-based Baloise increased 2.5 percent to 548 million Swiss francs last year, according to a statement on Tuesday. If the book losses from a divestment of a business in Germany are stripped out, the increase in profit was 13 percent.

The board proposes to increase the dividend by 8 percent to 5.60 francs per share.

The business volume added 3.9 percent to 9.26 billion francs. Non-life business was up 2.8 percent and investment-type premiums increased 15 percent. The traditional life business dropped 1.6 percent owing to a restrictive underwriting policy, Baloise said.

Less Capital Intensive

The company has shifted its strategy to focus on life insurance products that are less capital-intensive. The group’s combined combined ratio stayed at 92.3 percent.

Baloise gained 118,000 new customers in 2017 and expects to reach its goal of 1 million additional customers by 2021.

«We are very satisfied with the performance of the non-life and life businesses,» said Gert De Winter, CEO of Baloise, in the statement. «The shift in the portfolio towards life insurance products that tie up less capital is having a sustained positive effect.»

Digital Push

Baloise has actively pursued a strategy of speeding up the introduction of digital products. The company said that it will continue on this path.

The company last June for instance said it would acquire Movu, a digital home-moving service platform. In July it decided to invest in a U.S. insurtech firm called Trov, a company that launched an on-demand insurance platform for single items.

Rapid Progress

In January, Baloise opened mobility platforms for car owners in Belgium providing assistance to car owners similar to the services provided by maker of quality cars such as Volvo. The Swiss company also operates the Friday digital insurer – a Berlin-based startup financed by Baloise.

«Thanks to various digital initiatives in all our core markets, we occupy a leading position as we move forward rapidly into the insurance industry of the future,» De Winter said.