First quarter net income up 20% for Zurich Insurance

Zurich Insurance Group has reported a business operating profit of US$1.4 billion and net incomes of US$1.3 billion for the first quarter of the year.

Its net income for the three months ended March 31 was up 20%, or US$210 million over the prior year quarter, while its business operating profit climbed US$30 million over last year.

“This is a solid start to the year,” George Quinn, Zurich’s chief financial officer said in a press release.

“We see some early positive signs in the execution of our strategic targets for 2014 to 2016 but there is still much to do. As announced in March, we are implementing a program to streamline the company, removing management layers between Group and the business units and empowering our people to act decisively in delivering first-class services to our customers.

“Global Life is progressing as planned and the development trend at Farmers is positive, while our General Insurance business reported a good Combined Ratio, benefitting from a relatively benign catastrophe environment and a one-off pension gain.”

Zurich’s General Insurance business saw a US$38 million increase in business operating profit to US$845 million. Gross written premiums and policy fees remained flat compared with the same quarter of 2013.

The net underwriting result increased by US$89 million to US$456 million, with a reported combined ratio of 93.9%, compared with 94.9% in Q1 of 2013.

Its Farmers business operating profit was stable at US$415 million, while Global Life’s business operating profit increased by US$2 million to US$319 million.