Partners Life records strong profit

Partners Life has reported a record underlying insurance profit, increasing 76% to $22 million for the year to March 31.

Tuesday, July 31st 2018, 9:00AM

The result comes on strong growth across the business with its book of in-force policies growing 21% to $251 million and a record year of new business sales totalling $49 million.

The result has also been achieved against the background of a flat life insurance market.

Partners has also recently received its third and final tranche of a $200 million investment into the business by US-based Blackstone.

Managing director Naomi Ballantyne says growth has come across the business rather than from specific areas.

She says the results were better than expected and they can partly be attributed to disruption in the life insurance market with companies changing ownership. These changes create uncertainty for the companies involved.

However, she also says that the results show Partners Life is “growing and growing profitably.”

Partners Life’s claims loss ratio was steady at 41.5%, with total claims increasing 21% to $86 million in line with premium income. Operating expense growth at 15% remains well below the rate of premium and in-force book growth.

The company has paid out more than $278 million in claims in the past seven years.

Ballantyne says this is what insurers do and “it most should always be the first metric on which they are judged.”

Chairman Jim Minto says, “Against increasing scepticism of financial services organisations, Partners Life is focused on building a balanced organisation that builds trust by taking into account the interests of all its key stakeholders every day.

“Our customers, business partners, staff, shareholders, regulators, wider community and government all need to have confidence in what we do. We can only build that confidence by trying every day to balance those needs.”

Partners Life has been the top ranking life company in the 2018 Lewers Life Insurance Intermediaries Survey for the eighth consecutive year; it is the only life insurer to receive a 5-star rating. Partners Life’s Net Promoter Score was 66, up again from last year’s score of 60 and the highest in its peer group.

Ballantyne says, “the wellbeing of our customers and the New Zealand public is important to us, as is contributing to education and confronting some difficult obstacles in how we deal with health and personal finance as a society.”