ESRIC declares E159.5m dividend

By Phephile Motau

Eswatini Royal Insurance Corporation (ESRIC) declared a E159.5 million dividends for the year ended 31 December 2021.

This is according to ESRIC’s Integrated Report 2021 which was released on December 22, 2022. The corporation said this was its third integrated report and with it, they endeavoured to present a full, coherent, consistent and transparent description of how we create value for shareholders in the short, medium- and long term, as well as to reflect the material interests of all stakeholders.

The Chairman Muhawu Maziya in his report said he was pleased that the Corporation’s capital position enabled the Board to recommend a dividend of E159.6 million for the year ended 31 December 2021 (while they declared E165.1 million in 2020). He added that the total dividend of E159.6 million is made up of a normal dividend of E128.7 million Non-Life (short-term), and a normal dividend of E30.9 million from Life business (long-term).

Meanwhile, the company recorded a profit before tax of E203 million while in 2020 it was E267 million. The net income after tax was E149 million while in 2020, it was E198 million.

Maziya said the Corporation continued in the year under review with its mandate of providing Non-Life Insurance, Life Assurance, and Pension Administration services in a very challenging business environment.

“Like other businesses, ESRIC has been affected in the past two years by the disruptions brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic which ravaged the business environment in the country, placing many of our clientele in a bearish environment that inevitably negatively affected our growth plans,” he said.

He added that as if that was not enough, business was further crippled by civil unrest in the second half of the year. Maziya said this also disrupted normal business and placed further downward pressure on their clients and negating their efforts for growth.

“As a consequence of this unfavourable environment, the year under the review has generally been marked by the stagnant performance of premiums resulting in the Non-Life section of the business recording only one per cent growth,” he said.

Maziya added that the Life section of the business, however, grew by 4.6 per cent.

“In this low growth, competitive market, overall pressure on pricing continued across most classes of business and the Corporation was compelled to respond by further adjusting overall prices, forgoing growth in order to retain market share,” he said.

He said notwithstanding these developments, the Corporation delivered pleasing overall performance consistent with prior years and that it had maintained its reputation as a reliable insurer and continued to be the major player in the industry in the country.