Union Assurance Company Limited has posted Gross Premium Income, GPI, of N4.303 billion for the 2012 financial year.

The figure represents a 12 per cent increase from N3.842 billion realised in 2011.

Addressing shareholders at the company’s Annual General Meeting, AGM, in Lagos, Chairman of the company, Mr. Emeka Emuwa said that year 2012 in retrospect was challenging, yet the company delivered modest growth.

The Chairman said that net premium income rose from N2.874 billion in 2011 to N3.549 billion in 2012 while life and retail business portfolio increased by 61.7 per cent from N1.040 billion in 2012 to N1.681 billion in 2012.

He said “The company recorded a substantial increase of 21.5 per cent in claims settlement within the period under review, recording N955 million in2012 from N786 million in 2011. This was largely due to the occurrence of a number of one off claims. The company’s total assets grew by 2.5 per cent from N9.026 billion in 2011 to N9.261 billion in 2012.

On the future outlook, the Chairman said “Without much doubt, 2013 promises to be an interesting and rewarding year for us all even as we grapple with stringent regulatory changes. Union Assurance management is committed to pursuing strategies that will bring about optimum utilization of resources and reducing cost. All agencies will be re-tooled for expanded operations and business growth. We expect them to triple premium revenue over the next few years and hope to consolidate our investment income to maximum result.”

He said “As part of NAICOM’s transition to risk-based supervision and strict observance of the provision of section 50 of the insurance act 2033, it announced the enforcement of the ‘’ No Premium No Cover” policy effective from 1st January 2013. This policy aims to stimulate liquidity within the industry eliminating the large provisions of outstanding premium income and a major risk faced by insurance companies. It has therefore become unlawful for insurance companies to grant cover to an individual or corporate body without first receiving premium. Though the ‘’No premium no cover” policy may currently present some challenges, we expect to overcome these. We will continue to overhaul our systems and processes to support the rapid growth in our life and retail businesses.

“We recognize the wide range of risks that our systems are subjected to in today’s business world and have made significant stride in our quest to run robust information communication technology (ICT) solutions to prevent potential breaches of our customer’s information. We have deployed an effective document management system and  both life and general businesses are already on a parallel run of the Core Business Application (CBA) that currently drives our businesses,” the Chairman said.