Consolidated Hallmark Insurance Plc has announced a profit before tax of N971.7 million for the financial year ended Dec. 31, 2021against N772.6 million in 2020, an increase of 26 per cent.
Mr Obinna Ekezie, the Chairman of the company, said this at the 27th Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Wednesday in Lagos.
Ekezie said that the insurer’s profit after tax during the review period rose by 17 per cent to N790.6 million from N678 million in 2020.
He said that the company generated a Gross Premium Written (GPW) of N10.5 billion in the year under review as against N9.8 billion in 2020, an increase of 7.4 per cent.
The chairman added that the group’s total assets rose by 10 per cent to N15.7 billion from N14.3 billion in 2020.
“Despite the prevailing economic environment, investment income grew from N940 million to N1.2 billion in 2021.
“The financial year under review was again another success story by your company, despite the persisting challenges in the operating environment,” he said.
Ekezie said that the underwriting firm declared a final dividend of N433.6 million during the period under review which translated to four kobo per share.
“We had earlier paid N216.8 million interim dividend at two kobo per share and expected to pay final dividend of N216.8 million amounting to two kobo per share as well, thereby, bringing the total dividend payment to N433.6 million.
“The dividend payment is in a bid to reward our teeming shareholders for their commitment and loyalty,” he added.
In his address, Mr Eddie Efekoha, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the company, said that insurer was able to achieve the feat due to measures it applied to cut cost.
“I am glad to inform you that some prudent cost control measures we put in place helped us to attain an all-time high profit before taxation of N971.7 million in 2021”, he said.
Efekoha said whilst the company strives to continually meet the needs of its customers through prompt payment of all fully documented and genuine claims, it also continued to fine tune its risk underwriting through prudent measures.
He noted that these strategy has paid off , as it recorded a drop in the amount expended on claims in 2021 to N3.99 billion from the N4.2 billion claims expenses in 2020.
“We, however, recovered more from our robust reinsurance arrangement in 2021 than the previous year as evident in the N1.71 billion recovered when compared with N1.61 billion,” he said.
According to him, the 2021 financial year was filled with a lot of hopes not just for the insurance industry and by extension the financial services sector, but the entire economy.
“It was a year which marked the near full reopening of the operations space for businesses to thrive following the easing of the global lockdowns and restrictions that characterised the previous year 2020.
“For us in Consolidated Hallmark Insurance, our story is not different from that of the nation as the year whose operations we are reviewing during this AGM marks another positive outing for us in the various key financial indices,” he added.
Efekoha said the underwriter had developed some unique products that would address specific needs of customers which would be accessible digitally and launched into the market, upon approval from the regulator.
He said that arrangements were on top gear for the transformation of the insurance company into a Holding Company structure.
“Upon approval by the regulators, this will enable us to formalise our diversified operations in other aspects of financial services thus putting us in good stead to optimise advantages derivable from Holdco structures.
“Benefits like additional income from cross selling of our services to customers across the group would now be tapped vigorously,” he said.
