Swiss insurer Helvetia in 2019 increased its profit by a quarter, driven by growth in the non-life business. The company plans to launch its first asset management products as early as in April.
Helvetia, which is based in Basel and St. Gallen, in 2019 had net income of 538.1 million Swiss francs ($561.3 million), up 25 percent from a year earlier, it said in a statement on Wednesday. The business volume increased 4.2 percent to 9.45 billion francs.
The non-life business was the main growth driver with an increase of 6.4 percent, while premiums in the life unit rose 1.3 percent. The non-life and life businesses are almost equal in size at Helvetia.
Ecosystem and Online Business
The board of directors proposes to increase the dividend by 0.2 francs per share to 5 francs per share.
Helvetia is gradually opening up to new business models. In Switzerland it is developing an ecosystem relating to housing with MoneyPark as its partner and is also gaining a foothold in the online business with its Smile insurance unit.
Asset Management Strategy
In a next step, Helvetia is set to launch new products in the area of asset management. It has founded a company division for this purpose and will in future make its investment expertise in the real estate sector available to third parties.
A first real estate fund is to be launched in April 2020. This will help the company broaden its product offering and diversify its income sources in the form of fee income.
