VIG Re saw its gross written premiums increase 14.2% YOY to €661m, as reported in its latest results.
The firm said that profit before taxes had also risen, by 19% YOY, while its underwriting result increases 28.5% to €20.2m. In addition, it said that its total assets were up by 41% to €1.4bn, with returns on equity reaching 11.7%. Profit before taxes was up €26.8m.
Johannes Martin Hartmann, chairman of the board of directors at VIG Re, said: “Despite the year 2021 will be recorded as the costliest year on record for VIG Re, driven by severe flood and storm events in Continental Europe, VIG Re has delivered top financial results. We continued to grow our top line, benefitting from the upscaling of our underwriting capabilities.”
He added: “We have anchored our position as a leading reinsurer in the CEE region and continuously expanded our business in Continental Europe and East Asia. Even more importantly, even in a year of extraordinary market losses we were able to deliver excellent underwriting results, demonstrating the resilience of our business model.”
The firm’s annual report revealed that while P&C and life premiums had seen significant increases, health premiums saw a slight fall in value from €28.355m to €28.312m.
In the annual report, Peter Thirring, chairman of the supervisory board at VIG Re, said that the past year had presented ‘unprecedented circumstances’ due to the Covid-19 pandemic, along with high natural catastrophe losses, continued low interest rates, and accelerating inflation.
He added: “In line with the ‘VIG Re Strategy 2025’, new underwriting territories have been added and the company will further extend its footprint in life reinsurance and facultative reinsurance offerings, to further diversify and improve the portfolio mix. In 2021, we have welcomed Stephan Wirz as a new member of the board of directors taking over responsibility for the incoming reinsurance, as well as Karl Fink and Wolfgang Petschko complementing the Supervisory Board.”
Looking ahead, the firm said that the themes were economic uncertainty in politically unstable times.
The authors of the report wrote: “By the end of 2021, optimism was widely prevailing that the global economy will continue on its recovery path from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. National vaccination programs and contingent measures were able to contain the spread of the virus and the public life started to adopt to a “new normal”. Governmental deficit spending as well as fiscal and central bank monetary policy supported the economic recovery. By the end of 2021, new virus variations were regarded as the largest threat to the recovery, leading to a stressed health system and reinforcing partial lockdown measures. While by the end of 2021 inflation was hiking up as a consequence of stretched supply chains and rising energy prices, most economist assessed this as a temporary effect, which would ease in the course of the year.”
They added: “The Russian war on Ukraine in February 2022 however did not only bring hardship and destruction to a large country in Central and Eastern Europe but is likely to have a significant impact on the global economy. The global increase of energy and food prices as immediate effects leads to an even more pronounced inflation. The international sanctions imposed on Russia and the disruption of European supply chains from Ukrainian production sites will have adverse impacts on the globe and even more pronounced on the European economy.”
