Monday, May 06, 2024
Although its profit grew significantly, Crystal Insurance Limited, a publicly traded general insurer, reported the highest unpaid claims in the current year’s January–June period over the same period of the last five years.
The insurer’s total claims outstanding stood at Tk 14.91 crore at the end of H1 of 2023, which was 84 per cent higher than that at the end of the same period of the last year, as per its unaudited financial statement.
The company’s amount of unpaid insurance claims was Tk 8.12 crore in the first half of 2022.
Although the company’s net profit grew to Tk 13.62 crore in H1 of the ongoing year from Tk 9.29 crore in the first six months of the last year, its unpaid claims stood the highest at the end of the current year’s first half.
The listed insurer’s unpaid was Tk 6.67 crore at the end of H1 of 2019.
Despite this unpleasant financials, the insurer’s share price surged by 68 per cent in the last 12 trading sessions.
Each of the Crystal Insurance shares closed at Tk 99.3 on Thursday on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), the highest over two years.
The company released its financial report for the second quarter (April–June 2023) on July 19 this year.
Its earnings per share (EPS) rose by 35 per cent year-on-year during the quarter.
After that, no financial progress information was disclosed by the company on the DSE website, but its shares continued to soar on the prime bourse.
In view of the increase in share price, the company said there was no undisclosed price-sensitive information behind the recent unusual share price hikes and an increase in the volume of its traded shares.
Fazle Karim, chief executive officer of Crystal Insurance Limited told The Business Post that the share price might be impacted due to its recent announcement of investment in a proposed digital bank.
He also said they were taking various initiatives to pay the insurance claims.
“We have also decided to invest in digital bank to increase our income,” Fazle Karim continued.
Crystal Insurance Company decided to invest Tk 12.5 crore as a sponsor shareholder to establish a digital bank.
The amount of investment is 10 percent of the total paid-up capital of the digital bank, the company said.
In the first half of 2023, the company reported earnings per share (EPS) of Tk 1.78, a 37 per cent growth compared to that for the same period of the previous year.
In 2022, the private sector insurer made a profit of Tk 10.89 crore, up from Tk 11.31 crore in 2021.
The company had paid a 10 per cent cash dividend to its shareholders for 2022.
Like most of the general insurance companies in the industry, Crystal Insurance underwrites risks in the fire, marine, motor and miscellaneous business areas.
On 23 September 2020, Crystal Insurance received approval from the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission to go public through an initial public offering (IPO).
The insurance company raised Tk 16 crore by issuing 1.6 crore shares.
