Nigeria’s NEM Insurance Plc, says it grew its Profit before Tax (PBT) by 258.3 percent and 290.8 percent for the Group and Parent Company respectively.

The company also says its PBT rose massively fromN598.8 million in the previous year of 2015 to N2.14 billion at the end of 2016 while the Parent Company BPT rose from N559.4 million In 2015 to N2.19 billion in the period under review.

Speaking at the company’s 47th Annual General Meeting held in Ibadan, Oyo State, the Chairman of the company, Dr. Fidelis Ayebae also noted that there was a notable improvement in the company’s claim experience during the period under review.

According to him claims expenses incurred by the Group and Parent Company was N2.67 billion during the reporting year, an improvement of 32.6percent and 29.7percent respectively.

He said “in the previous year the absolute figures were N3.96 billion and N3.8 billion respectively. Gross Claims ratio was 37.7percent for the Group and Parent Company, while that of the preceding year was 43.9percent and 43.3percent respectively.

The Net Claims ratio was 31.4percent for the Group and Parent Company, while that of the previous year was 46.3percent and 46.6percent respectively. He added that “the Financial Assets for the Group and Parent Company for the year under review improved by 8.5 percent and 17.9percent respectively over that of the preceding year. While the Total Assets and Total Equity of the Group improved by 16.1% and 19.4% respectively, those of the Parent Company improved by 20.2percent and 19.7percent respectively.”

He explained further that “following the directive of the National Insurance Commission Ghana to increase the share base of Insurance Companies from $1 million to $5 million, we decided to merge our operations with Regency Alliance Ghana Ltd.

The new name of the merged entity is RegencyNem Insurance Ghana Ltd. As a result of the merger, the status of NEM Insurance Ghana Ltd has changed from being a subsidiary to an Associate as our stake in the company is 40percent.

“This resulted into a decrease of 1.3percent in Gross Premium over the previous period for the Group. The absolute figure was N10.8 billion in 2016 as against N10.9 billion in 2015.

On the other hand the Parent Company recorded an increase of 4percent over the previous year. The sum of N10.8 billion was achieved in 2016 while in 2015 it was

N10.3 billion.

“The low interest rate as well as the inability of MTN to pay dividend as at when due because of the issue they had with the NCC, investment income decreased by 35.7% for the Group and 29.1% for the Parent Company. While the Group generated an Investment Income of N479.5million during the year under review, the Parent Company also generated N479.5 million.