FBD Holdings, the only the indigenous Irish insurer in the market here has announced pre-tax losses for the six months to June of €3.6m, that’s a significant improvement on the €96.5m losses racked up by FBD at the same stage last year.
Since then, FBD has appointed former Central Bank Director, Fiona Muldoon as Chief Executive and raised a €70m convertible bond from Prem Watsa’s Fairfax of Canada, to meet new EU insurance company solvency rules.
FBD says it benefitted from average premium increases of 11% during the six-month period, offset by a 7% fall in policy volumes from direct operations and broker intermediaries.
The company says it's on track to deliver full year profitability next year and that unless action is taken to tackle injury claims inflation, Irish insurance customers will bear the cost of much higher premiums than those seen in other countries. Ms Muldoon warned that premiums are likely to continue to increase "for a further period" in some areas of the business.
She added that reforms are needed to tackle a rise in claims, "In the absence of such reform, we believe Irish insurance customers will bear the cost of much higher premiums than those seen in other countries," she added.
