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Friday Sep 20, 2024
Friday, 8 March 2019 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The Board of Directors of AIA Insurance Lanka PLC announced the financial results of the Company and its subsidiary for the year ended 31 December 2018.
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AIA Sri Lanka Chairman William Lisle |
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AIA Sri Lanka Chief Executive Officer Pankaj Banerjee |
Consolidated revenue grew by 6% to Rs. 18,232 million during the financial year 2018, from the figure reported for financial year 2017, driven by the growth in Gross Written Premium.
Gross Written Premium (GWP) of the life insurance business, grew by 11% to a record Rs. 12,739 million, driven by growth in regular premium business and a favourable shift in persistency. There was continued improvements in customer engagement and premium collection, that resulted in a 22% growth in premium collection from these initiatives.
Conventional life business GWP grew by 12%, with growth from both the agency and bancassurance channels.
Investment income dropped by 3%,due to impact on government bond values from the abolishing of national Withholding Tax credits (NTC) effective from 1April 2018 with the enactment of the Inland Revenue Act 2017.
Consolidated profit after tax decreased from Rs. 13,442 reported in 2017to Rs. 4,111millionin 2018. The profit after tax for 2018 includes the transfer of life business surplus for the year, being Rs. 1,157 million and the creation of a deferred tax asset of Rs. 2,537 million arising from the tax regime change for life insurers with the enactment of the Inland Revenue Act 2017, which introduced a surplus based tax basis replacing the previous I-E tax basis.
The consolidated profit after tax for 2017 includes the transfer of life business for the year and the transfer of the Risk Based Capital one-off surplus in line with the Direction #16 issued by the Insurance Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka.
AIA Sri Lanka Chief Executive Officer Pankaj Banerjee said:“2018 was characterised by continued transformation at AIA Sri Lanka aimed at laying a strong foundation for sustained growth, driven by our brand promise of helping customers live healthier, longer, better lives. In 2018, AIA Sri Lanka demonstrated great resilience and discipline to deliver a robust performance amidst a challenging external environment marked by slowdown in consumer demand, relatively low economic growth and continued uncertainty in the socio-economic front.
“Against the backdrop of the economic challenges during the year, AIA Sri Lanka remained focused on executing our strategy and launched several key initiatives including the launch of a full-time professional agency outfit of Premier Agency Circle (PAC). We continued to enhance our customer offering with market leading and needs based new pension and health solutions with the introduction of Smart Pension and HealthProtector. We also launched a top-tiered customer program ‘AIA First Class’ for our premier customers.
“We strengthened our bancassurance platform with continued strong growth through our strategic partnerships with DFCC Bank and NDB Bank, while also commencing development of our digital sales system.Our investments in strengthening our brand visibility also resulted in sizeable enhancement in our brand recognition parameters with Total Brand Awareness growing to 86% by the end of the year. These are all testimony of AIA Group’s firm commitment to the Sri Lankan business where we continue to invest in transformational initiatives, and look forward to achieving further success in the years to come.”
AIA Sri Lanka Chairman William Lisle said:“I am pleased to see AIA Sri Lanka’s resilience in the face of adversity and appreciate the initiatives launched in 2018 and also the progress made. I remain confident of the long-term growth potential of the Sri Lankan market, and we remain committed to continuously focusing on executing our strategy for making steady progress towards our goal of becoming the pre-eminent life insurer in Sri Lanka and help its people live healthier, longer, better lives.”
