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Enacy Mapakame

Business Reporter

Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) listed insurer, Fidelity Life Assurance (FLA)’s, net premium written fell 3 percent to $1,242 billion in the half year to June 2022 from $1,285 billion in the same period last year.

 In historical cost terms, net premium written was 137 percent above the same period last year mainly emanating from regular reviews of recurring premiums, new business acquisition and organic growth from the existing book.

Chairman Livingston Gwata said the life insurance businesses was currently the major contributor to total core income growth after contributing 80 percent of the total core income.

Total income grew by 379 percent to $13,029 million from $2,722 billion recorded in prior year period, underpinned by positive investment returns driven by fair value gains on investment properties and exchange gains on foreign currency denominated assets.

On an inflation adjusted basis, total benefits, claims and other expenses increased by 300 percent to $10 billion from $2,683 billion on the back of significant movements in actuarial liabilities reflecting the growth in assets backing the policyholder’s liabilities.

Operating and administration expenses were also on the increase mainly driven by inflationary pressures currently obtaining in the operating environment.

The group recorded an inflation adjusted profit for the period of $2,325 billion from $934 million recorded in prior period and a historical profit of $3,845 billion from $203 million representing a positive growth in the business.

Basic earnings per share rose 532 percent to 663 cents while headline earnings per share rose 457 percent to 671 cents.

Total assets grew 64 percent to $35,4 billion.

The business has not been spared from the economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the hyperinflationary local environment, although efforts have been made towards grow foreign currency business.

“However, our management and staff have managed to maintain our business performance at a satisfactory position. 

“We believe the strategies we adopted in our business units are increasingly bearing fruit. Our endeavours to grow USD revenue, increase product offering, and customer base have created a strong platform to launch our growth into the future.

“Key milestones in the period under review include launching a micro-finance product that provides USD loans to vendors in various cities and the solid commercial traction of the Vaka Yako product since its launch to the public on the 22nd of March 2022.

“These milestones have increased our US dollar market share in terms of loan book size and gross written premium respectively,” said Mr Gwata.

He added the group would continue expanding businesses within Zimbabwe and across the region with new product offerings to consolidate market share.

The group did not declare an interim dividend in order to preserve internal resources to strengthen its capital position through the deployment of earnings to increase business underwriting capacity.