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Mrs Grace Muradzikwa

Business Reporter
NICOZDIAMOND Insurance says it will increase its presence in the region as the prevailing economic conditions in Zimbabwe continue to shrink the market for its products .

This comes after trading in the year to July showed a 42 percent increase to $25,54 million from $17,98 million over the same period last year boosted by the group’s Malawian subsidiary, United General Insurance.

Excluding Malawi operations, the group recorded a 4 percent growth in the topline.

“We are happy with our 4 percent growth. For any level of growth we will be happy. The last time we recorded a loss was four years ago. We want to run a profitable business,” said NicozDiamond managing director Mrs Grace Muradzikwa on Friday.

Inspired by the growth in UGI, NicozDiamond said future growth can only come from external markets. Mrs Muradzikwa said focus will be given to new business growth through strategic partnerships and new products with a regional orientation.

Commenting on the group’s Hatfield residential property project, Mrs Muradzikwa said the first 20 units were handed over to beneficiaries at the end of June.

NicozDiamond is funding the project using internal financial resources.

“We have put on hold (handing over) the rest of the units. We need to monitor the sales, we have a target above which if we sell then we can proceed. We are self-financing this project we have not gone out to seek mortgage finance so we do not want to tie up a lot of capital into properties but we just want to manage how sales go before we start on Phase Two which is the next 20 years,” said Mrs Muradzikwa.

“We now have a couple of banks competing to fund this project and all of them offering 20-year mortgage. This makes us expect sales to increase. We now also have sectional title which was also another constraint,” she said.

The group will also focus on premium collection, revenue and cost alignment and customer retention. In the six months to June, gross premium written grew $22,4 million with NDI contributing $15,7 million, Fico $269 000 and UGI $6,4 million.

Net claims totalled $5,98 million, NDI accounting for $3,73 million, FICO $108 000 and UGI $2,14 million. Profit after tax was $1,3 million; $764 000 coming from NDI while FICO and UGI accounted for the remainder.

For the half year to June, net premiums written grew 49 percent to $15,1 million up from $10,1 million in the comparative period last year. Underwriting profit decreased 39 percent to $694 000 from $1,13 million in the same period last year.

Motor insurance contribution, although it recorded a decline to 44 percent from 46,5 percent in the same period last year, continues to lead the group’s revenue contribution followed by fire which also declined to 23 percent from 24,4 percent last year.

Significant growth was recorded in the other classes of insurance which grew 18 percent from 13,6 percent in the comparative period last year.