By Adedapo Adesanya
Sovereign Trust Insurance Plc has released its financial statement for the first six months of 2019 and Business Post gathered that the insurance firm recorded a 21 percent drop in its net profit compared to what was earned after tax from January to June 2018.
The company’s financial statements showed that it registered a profit of N480 million after tax compared to a higher N660 million recorded in HY 2018. Likewise, the profit before tax depreciated to N536.9 million from N683.7 million in the same period of last year.
The decline in profit occurred despite an increase in the insurer’s Gross Premium Written (GPW), which stood at N7.3 billion as at June 30, 2019 in contrast to N7.1 billion recorded in the first half of 2018. This indicated that the firm’s GPW rose by 2 percent year-on-year in the period under consideration.
A further analysis of the company’s results showed that the net premium written dropped by 4 percent to N3.06 billion from N3.2 billion recorded in the half year of 2018.
In addition, Sovereign Trust Insurance’s net claim expenses were lower in HY 2019 by 22 percent at N1.01 billion versus N1.3 billion in the previous half year, with the earnings per share (EPS) at 5 kobo against 7 kobo in H1 2018.
The financial statements further showed that the company’s total assets also depreciated, this time by 5 percent, dropping to N10.9 billion against N11.5 billion, while the total equity rose by 4 percent to N6.3 billion from the previous HY record of N6.03 billion.
Dipo Olowookere