Leading mutual P&I and marine insurer Gard is going to waive USD37 million in premium collections from its members following another strong performance last year.
The Norwegian club today posted USD87 million in net earnings for the year ending 20 February 2015, which is only marginally down from USD89 million in 2013/14. Profits were underpinned by an improved technical result owing to a drop in large claims last year, with the insurer’s combined ratio (claims and operational costs versus premium income) across all classes down from 97% to 88%.
In contrast, the return of Gard’s investment portfolio weakened from 4.3% to just 1.8% amid fickle markets.
As last year, the club said it will use profits to offer cost relief to shipowners. The agreed premium volume for the 2014 policy year will be cut back through a reduction of the deferred call for 2014 to 15% from the original estimate of 25% of the advance call, Gard said. The same was done last year, although the overall saving for members then amounted to slightly less – USD35 million in total – due to the smaller insured fleet at the time.
This post was sourced from IHS Maritime 360: View the original article here.