By Adedapo Adesanya
One of Nigeria’s top insurance companies, Veritas Kapital Assurance Plc, formerly known as Unity Kapital Assurance, has released its first half of 2019 financial statements and the details indicated that the company recorded a lesser pre-tax profit when compared with the first half of last year.
In the results by the board to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), the insurance house made a profit after tax of N60.9 million in contrast to N65.5 million recorded in the first half of 2018.
Business Post observed that this was mainly dampened by the higher tax paid by the firm in the period under review; N101.6 million as at June 30, 2019 versus N28.1 million as at June 30, 2018.
In the period under review, the insurer recorded a profit before tax of N162.5 million, higher than N93.6 million posted in the same period of last year.
However, Veritas Kapital recorded a lower Gross Premium Written (GPW) of N1.8 billion between January and June this year compared with a GPW of N2.1 billion made in H1 2018.
But the Gross Premium Income was slightly higher than the previous period under review as Veritas registered N1.49 billion as against N1.48 billion, with the company paying gross insurance claims and benefit of N168.2 million including loss adjustment expenses in H1 2019 lesser than N469.3 million paid in 2018.
Veritas recorded a higher underwriting expense of N283.9 million in the period under review compared N272.8 million recorded in H1 2018, with the management expenses also increasing to N701.4 million in H1 2019 from N634.4 million in the first half of the previous year.
In the results, the insurance firm said the net premium income dropped to N969.7 million from N1.2 billion, while the fees and commission income rose to N75.9 million from N34.2 million, with the net underwriting income crashing to N1.1 billion from N1.2 billion.
Dipo Olowookere