BENGALURU (Reuters) – India’s ICICI Lombard General Insurance posted a 40% jump in its fourth-quarter profit after tax, driven by higher income from premiums.
The Mumbai-based insurer’s March-quarter profit after tax rose to 4.37 billion rupees ($53.29 million), from 3.13 billion rupees posted a year ago.
The insurer’s combined ratio, a key profitability metric for an insurance firm’s underwriting business, improved to 104.2% from 103.2% seen a year ago.
The combined ratio measures the incurred losses and expenses in relation to total premiums collected.
Its solvency ratio, a measure of an insurer’s ability to meet its long-term debt obligations, rose to 2.51 from 2.46 in the year-ago period.
ICICI Lombard’s motor business, which contributes to around 60% of the company’s net premium income, rose 9% to 21.02 billion rupees for the quarter.
Net premium income rose 12.3% to 37.26 billion rupees, while income from investments advanced 14.5% to 6.16 billion rupees.
Shares of ICICI Lombard closed 2.4% higher on Tuesday ahead of the results.
($1 = 82.0100 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Anuran Sadhu in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
