Smile Life bemoans growing claims in 2011

Smile Life Insurance Company, a wholly owned Malawian life insurance company, has bemoaned the growing number of claims it registered in 2011 which grew by 452 percent to K44.8 million from K8.1 million the previous year.

In the financial statement released on Monday co-signed by Smile Life chairman Elias Kambalame and chief executive officer Stain Singo, the company said the claims overshadowed  the 154 percent growth in written premium income of K200.8 million.

“Having been in the business for two years and nine months from April 1 2009 to December 31 2011, the company continued to register significant growth during the 2011 financial year despite the uncertain and challenging economic environment such as forex shortages and stiff competition,” reads the statement in part.

In the year, Smile Life made a loss of K12.2 million which was then an improvement from 2010’s loss of K26.6 million.

Going forward, Smile Life whose assets have swelled to K129 million from K123 million the year before, expects persistence in the economic challenges in the short to medium term, but is upbeat that the 2012 financial year will see a turnaround in the unfavourable claims experience.

The company said it will continue to offer professional underwriting, superior customer services, continued expansion programmes as well as product innovation to counter the economic challenges and competition.

Last year, the company said it expects to achieve profitability by the end of three years of operations.

This means that the company which started operations in 2009 to complement the provision of life insurance services to Malawians will start breaking even in 2012.

It said then that it is the norm in the insurance industry to break even after five years of operations, but the company said it has made tremendous improvement on 2009 results.