May 16 (SeeNews) - Austrian insurance group UNIQA said on Thursday that its profit before taxes from operations in Bulgaria rose to 800,000 euro ($897,000) in the first quarter of 2019 from 600,000 euro in the same period of last year.
UNIQA's net premiums earned fell to 12.3 million euro in the January-March period of this year from 13.2 million euro in the comparable period of 2018, the company said in an interim financial statement.
Gross written premiums were unchanged year-on-year, and amounted to 21.4 million euro in the first three months of the year.
Gross non-life premiums grew 12% on the year to 12.9 million euro, and gross health premiums increased 7% to 2.3 million euro in the review period.
This was offset by a 20% in gross premiums from life insurance, which amounted to 6.2 million euro in the first quarter of the year.
In Bulgaria, the Austrian group owns 99.9% of UNIQA Insurance, 99.6% of UNIQA Life Insurance, 99.8% of Vitosha Auto and 100% of UNIQA Real Estate Bulgaria.
In Southeast Europe, UNIQA operates in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Croatia. In the region - excluding Romania - the group turned to a pre-tax profit of 2.3 million euro in the first quarter of 2019 from a loss before taxes of 2.9 million euro in the comparable period of 2018.
($ = 0.8919 euro)
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