LPI founder and chairman Tan Sri Teh Hong Piow said the general insurance industry was affected by the slowdown in economic activities.
KUALA LUMPUR: LPI Capital Bhd
's earnings for its third quarter ended Sept 30, 2017, rose 18.5% to RM92.17mil from a year ago and revenue jumped 11.8% to RM406.78mil on strong performance from the group's Lonpac Insurance business.
Lonpac's gross premium income for the third quarter grew 34.6% to RM416.6mil from RM309.6mil registered a year ago while its profit before tax registered a 20.3% jump to RM102.4mil from RM85.1mil previously.
"With its prudent underwriting policy and costs control measures, Lonpac managed to improve its combined ratio to a new record low of 63.9% for the third quarter of 2017, reduced from 65% reported in previous corresponding quarter.
"As a result, its underwriting profit registered a strong improvement by 19.9% to RM83.6mil from RM69.7mil previously, despite its claim incurred ratio having increased marginally to 40.3% from 38.9% previously," said group founder and chairman Tan Sri Teh Hong Piow.
In the nine months to Sept 30, 2017, LPI's earnings dipped to RM230.79mil from RM355.77mil on 8.1% higher revenue of RM1.02 bil. The decrease in profit was owing to extraordinary gains from realisation of its equity investment a year ago.
Excluding the extraordinary gains, the profit before tax for the period under review would have showed an 11% increase.
Earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter was 27.76 sen, bringing the combined earnings for the nine-month period to 69.52 sen per share. EPS for the same period last year was 107.17 sen.
On the group's future plans, Teh commented that Lonpac's newly established Digital Strategy Department will meet the challenge of disruptive insurtech by leveraging on technology for better product distribution and services.
"With the improving Malaysian economy and the continuing infrastructure development by the Malaysian government, we are confident that the Group will be able to report an improved performance for the last quarter of the year," he added.
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