Cornerstone Insurance Plc, in 2019, reported gross premium income of N13.05b, an increase of 13% over the previous year.
The performance unveiled by the chairman, board of directors, Segun Adebanji, showed life insurance premiums accounted for 32.5%, an increase of 25%, while bonds, engineering and accident topped general business with N2.12b, oil and gas N2.04b and motor closing with N1.36b. The company made a profit before tax of N4.01b an increase of 22%.
Adebanji also noted the company’s foray into special risks and customers confidence in their underwriting expertise. However, he said the company employed tough risk acceptance measures because of the prevailing uneconomic rate levels.
He also noted some improvements: “Worthy of note is the improvement of our marginal surplus from N102m in 2018 to N4.9b in the year under review. This takes our solvency margin to 198 percent, almost double the regulatory benchmark. Cash and cash equivalents balances also rose from N4.22b to N12.64b, thus greatly improving our liquidity.”
The board also got approval to transfer N1.72b from the company’s share premium account to the share capital account issuing bonus shares in the proportion of seven new shares of fifty kobo each for every 30 existing share of fifty kobo each, to achieve the company’s recapitalisation plan.
