Lower claims leave room for 26m-euro profit at VIG

Austrian insurer Vienna Insurance Group, which controls the Omniasig, Asirom, BCR Asigurări and BCR Asigurări de Viaţă in Romania, posted 25.9 million euro gross profit from the Romanian operations in the first nine months, up 56% compared with the same time last year. The growth is mainly due to the decline in claims settled.
The gross profit stood at 11.6 million euros in the third quarter alone, compared with a 14.3 million-euro profit in the first six months of the year.
The profit went up even though the gross premiums underwritten by the group in Romania fell by 13% compared with the same time of last year, to 396 million euros.
Still the group managed to cut operating expenses and claims settled locally at a faster pace than the revenues went down. Therefore VIG posted 415.7 million euros in revenues in the first nine months, down 12% compared with the corresponding period of 2009.
On the other hand, total spending fell by 15% to 390 million euros. Claims settled dropped 18% to 262 million euros, while operating spending was cut by 12% to 113 million euros.