Corneille Karekezi, CEO Africa Re
The African Reinsurance Corporation (Africa Re) has posted premium income of US$617.07 million at the end of the third quarter (Q3) of 2019, translating to a growth of 6.87% over US$577.41 million achieved in the same period of 2018.
The improved performance was driven by Oil & Energy business from our production centres in Anglophone West Africa and Francophone West & Central Africa.
Although, there were a number of large losses reported, the year-to-date net incurred loss ratio improved by 180 basis points to 66.57% from 68.37% reported in the previous year. The net underwriting performance for the 9 months to 30 September 2019 resulted in a loss of US$11.13 million. This result was much better than last year’s underwriting loss of US$ 20.89 million. At this period, this is not new for the Corporation which believes that the underwriting result at the end of 2019 will be at least equal to the positive figure of US$ 21 million recorded in 2018.
Investment income at the end of the third quarter of 2019 recorded a major improvement, posting US$47.56million, up from US$24.68million in the corresponding period in September 2018. The Corporation benefitted from the positive upswing of the financial markets.
The Net profit at the end of the reporting period was US$33.65 million, outperforming previous year result of US$3.44 million by a considerable margin.
Mr. Corneille Karekezi, the Group MD/CEO of Africa Re, commenting on the Corporation’s performance at the end of the third quarter stated: “The financial performance for the 9 months is very encouraging and we remain optimistic of achieving a net profit in excess of US$ 60.0million in the full year 2019 (9 months to 30 September 2018 was US$ 31 million), barring any unforeseen major losses.’’
