By ETimes
Fidelity Life Assurance Zimbabwe on Thursday said its historical revenue for the first 8 months of 2022 rose 1220% compared to the same period last year and it expects the full year results to stay constant in terms of anticipation.
Managing Director Reginald Chihota told shareholders at the company’s annual general meeting that “this was driven mainly by net premium written as well as investment income, and the growth in the net premium written was mostly procured by the regular premium reviews that we did to keep pace with inflation.”
“As well as the strong growth of the life book, in addition, we also realized significant inflows from the new products that we were rolling out.”
Chihota said investment income was driven by fair value gains on investment properties and equities that were valued in the local currency.
Customers want to settle their transactions in US dollars, according to the operating environment.
“The business also recorded an increase in US dollar denominated revenue, which is testimony to the strategy we started pursuing last year, which has continued to pay dividends for the group,” he said.
In terms of the non-insurance business, those are micro lending units, asset management, funeral services, and actuarial services company.
“These non-insurance businesses contributed 20% to the recorded total revenue for the group and this business continues to provide business within the group but increasingly they are also recording business from third parties.”
The historical total group expenses increased by 1145% compared to the prior year.
“These total expenses were driven mainly by the benefits and claims that we pay. The changes in insurance contract liabilities as well as operating expenses.”
This was attributed to inflation which was ticking up as well as the exchange rates movement.
While benefits paid and claims were driven by Covid-19 related claims and also some retrenchment and debt claims that we recorded.
“So this trend was a carryover from prior year 2021 but we still pride ourselves in our capacity to pay claims timeously which obviously is the business that we are in,” he said.
While the operating environment continues to be challenging due to many factors, “we expect the full year results to remain unchanged in terms of our expectations and this will be mainly supported by our growing book of prices that we are recording.”
The group through its parent company has a new exciting range of new products that it is going to carry out which will contribute to its anticipated strong cash generation capacity.
At the AGM, directors’ fees were approved at $10,692,668 and auditors’ fees at $21,931,736. Grant Thornton Chartered Accountants was reappointed as the auditors of the company –Harare