Prestige Assurance blames low profit on Dana’s claim

Prestige Assurance Plc, has classified the huge single claim of over N725 million paid to Dana Airlines, is responsible for its low profitability for the year ended December 31, 2015.

The firm was the lead insurer for Dana Airlines, which air craft crashed some years back, killing its passengers and crew members.

The organisation, with other co-insurers seized the responsibility of rewarding relatives of the crash victims and the ground victims.

The company, which completed the claims settlement from the crash last year, put total claims paid at N725 million.

The company assured its shareholders that it has brought everything concerning the Dana Air claims under control as it declared gross premium of N2.4430533 billion for the period.

Profit Before Tax of the company for the period stood at N20.339577 million while loss incurred after tax stood at N145.295000 million.

Announcing this at the 46th annual general meeting of the company held in Lagos, Prestige Assurance Chairman, Hasan Usman, said the quantum of loss after tax incurred was due to the peculiarity of the tax laws guiding insurance companies where in tax is levied against premium earned and not profit made.

He said the company’s underwriting expenses stood at N1.733977000 during the period under review while result from operating activities of the company stood at N39.577000.

Hassan, said though the competitive environment in Nigeria will be as challenging as ever, especially with the entrance of international giants into the Nigerian market, the situation presents opportunity to upgrade insurance practice in Nigeria and is good for its operations because of the rare competitive strength it had built for itself over the years as one of the oldest and most experienced operators in the Nigerian market.

“Our unmatched depth of knowledge of the Nigerian market and very strong international links gives us cause to believe that we are well poised to tap into areas of opportunity in the Nigerian market with our market winning products and services”, said Usman.

He said as part of the company’s strategy to achieve its target of being one of the top three insurance companies in Nigeria, the strategic business unit E business unit and Ikeja branch office have been opened and is fully operational even as he said that the company has got plans to open more branches with the intention of acquiring more market share of the insurance industry.