NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Bahamas First, the property and casualty insurer, saw a total comprehensive income of $5.3 million to end 2020, with the company’s performance having benefited from the absence of any major catastrophic event during the year.
Alison Treco, chair of the board, noted in a report on the company’s fourth quarter financial statements that the group ended 2020 with a total comprehensive income of $5.3 million, with $4.9 million attributable to owners of the group.
“Whilst comparison with prior year results shows a favorable position with respect to claims, we were fortunate to have little impact from any material catastrophic event in 2020, which was not the case in 2019,” said Treco.
“Hurricane Isaias did impact parts of The Bahamas in August 2020, but we are thankful that the damage was not significant.”
Treco noted that the markets on Abaco and Grand Bahama are slowly recovering following Hurricane Dorian and The Bahamas’ operations have benefited from premiums generated from engineering activity in the rebuilding process.
She further noted that, as expected, there was a significant increase in net underwriting income from $21 million in 2019 to $33 million in 2020 due to the absence of a catastrophe in 2020.
“Investment income negatively impacted results due to an unrealized loss of $2.9 million recorded for the year, which was offset to some extent by an increase of $1 million in other income. Expenses increased marginally by two percent,” said Treco.
“During the year, the group implemented a new software that is designed to bring the group to a new level of online interaction with its customers, brokers and agents. As expected, we incurred additional costs related to this implementation.
“We also incurred costs related to COVID-19, as we continue to implement best practices to keep our staff and customers safe.”
She added: “Ongoing retention of business will be a challenge and during Q4 there was a decrease in gross written premiums of five percent over the same quarter of the prior year.
“Whilst our claims’ experience for the first three quarters of the year was trending positively, during Q4 we experienced a 47 percent increase in overall claims compared to prior period. This was due to several fire claims in The Bahamas and an increase in health claims in Cayman.
“We noted an uptick in the use of general health services after restrictions were lifted in Cayman, due to the positive response to the pandemic. As a result, our net underwriting income for the quarter was down by 13 percent.
“Q4 saw a further decline in the unrealized loss on investment of $0.5 million compared to a gain of $1.6 million in the prior year, accounting for a swing in quarter-on-quarter of $2.1 million.
“The prior quarter’s loss was partially offset by an increase in other income of $1.2 million due to a loss on building revaluation recognized in 2019.”
