Donegal Group Inc. today reported $5.69 million net income for its 2015 third quarter, down from $8.75 million net income a year earlier. The Marietta, Pennsylvania-based insurer said its latest quarterly results were adversely affected by higher weather-related losses.
For the first nine months of 2015, net income increased to $19.01 million, compared to $10.05 million for the first nine months of 2014, due to improved results during the first half of 2015.
The GAAP combined ratio for the 2015 third quarter was 99.5 percent, compared to 96.8 percent during the 2014 third quarter — while the combined ratio for the first nine months of 2015 was 99.0 percent, improving from 101.8 percent for the first nine months of 2014.
Total net premiums written for this year’s third quarter increased to $158.92 million ($93.52 million for personal lines and $65.40 million for commercial lines), up 7.5 percent from $147.84 million ($89.67 million for personal lines and $58.17 million for commercial lines) a year earlier. Total net premiums written for the first nine months of the year rose to $481.12 million ($268.34 million for personal lines and $212.78 million for commercial lines), up 8.4 percent from $443.86 million last year ($254.66 million for personal lines and $189.19 million for commercial lines).
Net investment income for the 2015 third quarter was $5.40 million, up from $4.30 million a year earlier. Net investment income for the first nine months of 2015 also rose, to $15.51 million, up from $13.53 million last year.
“While our underwriting results for the third-quarter of 2015 fell short of the excellent results we achieved in the third quarter of 2014, we believe the year-over-year improvement in our financial results for the first nine months of 2015 clearly shows the meaningful progress we are making toward our objective. Our progress reflects growth initiatives that center on our regional business approach and conservative underwriting philosophy,” Donegal Group President and CEO Kevin G. Burke said.
Burke also said the company attributes approximately half of the growth in net premiums written for the first nine months of 2015 to additional net writings from the Michigan Insurance Company subsidiary (‘MICO’) that resulted from the company’s decision to eliminate MICO’s external quota-share reinsurance agreement effective Jan. 1, 2015. “We generated the remainder of the growth organically, reflecting our expanding position as a well-capitalized insurance group serving the needs of the independent agency markets within our operating regions,” Burke added.
“While no catastrophe events significantly impacted our third quarter of 2015 results, we experienced an unusually large volume of weather-related claims as a result of numerous wind and hail storms across several of our operating regions,” Donegal Group Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey D. Miller added.
The company reported weather-related losses of $14.6 million for the third quarter of 2015, compared to the $10.9 million of weather-related losses for the third quarter of 2014.
Topics Profit Loss
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