NEW DELHI: ICICI Lombard General Insurance today reported a 5.20 per cent increase in profit after tax (PAT) at Rs 231.76 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2017, and will focus on bringing down its combined ratio to 100 per cent.
A subsidiary of ICICI Bank, the general insurance firm had earned a PAT of Rs 220.30 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal.
"Our combined ratio has improved to 100.4 per cent in the nine months of FY18 from 106.2 per cent in the same period last year. Our focus is going to bring down our combined ratio to 100 per cent, going forward," ICICI Lombard General Insurance CEO Bhargav Dasgupta told reporters here.
He said, the general insurance industry is growing at 15-20 per cent and it will continue to grow in this pace and ICICI Lombard General Insurance is optimistic to grow at the same pace or at slightly ahead of it.
Total income rose to Rs 2,019.77 crore from Rs 1,842.93 crore in the year-ago period, ICICI Lombard said in a BSE filing.
This is the second quarterly result of the company after going public in September last year.
During the quarter, the company reported provision of tax of Rs 90.59 crore as against Rs 5.44 crore in the year-ago period.
The company's crop insurance income declined to Rs 86.95 crore during the quarter from Rs 90.82 crore in the same period last year.
"The crop insurance has dropped during the quarter but we are not chasing the topline," Dasgupta added.
The results for third quarter and nine-month period ended December 2016 were impacted due to effect of excess tax provision written back of earlier years.
During the quarter, the company's gross premium written rose to Rs 3,001.53 crore as compared to Rs 2,542.32 crore in the year-ago period.
Also, the solvency ratio improved to 2.21 times as against 2.01 times in December, 2016. The regulatory requirement is 1.50 times.
Shares of ICICI Lombard were trading 3.46 per cent higher at Rs 809.65 per scrip on BSE.