United Overseas Insurance Q2 net profit falls 16% to S$6.9m

UNITED Overseas Insurance (UOI)'s second-quarter net profit fell 15.5 per cent to S$6.9 million from the previous year, the group said in a Singapore Exchange filing on Wednesday evening.

Gross premium written slipped 0.9 per cent to S$29.5 million.

Annualised earnings per share was at 45.12 Singapore cents, down from 53.42 Singapore cents the same quarter a year ago.

For the first half of 2018, gross premium written fell 3.5 per cent to S$56.7 million, while net profit fell 24.8 per cent to S$11.4 million.

The fall in gross premium in the first half of the year was mainly due to market-wide erosion of premium rates and the company's risk-control efforts to "weed out unprofitable business and catastrophe-prone offshore insurance accounts", the general insurer said.

Annualised earnings per share for the first half of the year fell to 37.33 Singapore cents, down from 49.62 Singapore cents.

UOI shares remained unchanged and closed at S$6.60 on Wednesday.