Income from insurance premiums rose by 13% to over EUR 7,300 million, mainly for cars and healthcare
The Mutua Group has closed 2022 with a net profit of 405 million euros, up 7.1% on the previous year, despite having been “a difficult year”, as recognized by the president of the insurer, Ignacio Garralda, in the presentation of the company’s results.
Mutua’s turnover increased by almost 13% to 7,310 million euros. Of that amount, invoiced insurance premiums in Spain amount to almost 6,500 million euros, 13.3% more than last year. According to the group, this growth can be explained “by the good development of the insurance activities”, as all areas of activity of the company have made a positive contribution.
Specifically, in Grupo Mutua’s Non-Life business in Spain, its main activity, the insurer has exceeded EUR 6,000 million in Non-Life insurance premiums for the first time in its history, up 9.4%. The group’s main insurance businesses grew and outperformed the industry average, enabling Grupo Mutua to continue to gain market share.
For example, Grupo Mutua is ranked number one in the national Non-life insurance rankings for the fifth consecutive year, up from seventh place just over a decade ago. According to data from ICEA, Grupo Mutua also maintains the first position in the health insurance ranking, second in motor insurance and first in the accident industry. The total number of insured persons reached 20 million at the end of 2022, a growth of 12.4% compared to the previous year.
In the case of cars, the group achieved a turnover of 1,800 million, an increase of 16.3%, compared to an average increase of 3.3% in the sector. Its market share is close to 16% “profitable”, as the group points out, with a combined ratio of 91.8%, compared to 98% in the insurance sector.
Mutua claims that the 2022 data was partly benefited by the regularization of the impact of the measure to grant two months free extension (initiated during the pandemic), which caused a temporary adjustment of 95 million earned premium income from the Motor insurance industry from 2021 to 2022. Excluding this accounting effect, growth in the Auto line would have been 3.7%, but still higher than the industry average, which would have been 1.5%.
In the health insurance branch, the Mutua Group strengthened its leadership in 2022 through Adeslas, with a premium volume of EUR 3,167 million, 7% more than the previous year. This figure allowed it to consolidate its healthcare market share of more than 30%, almost double that of the next insurance group in the ranking.
SegurCaixa Adeslas, a company integrated into the Mutua Madrileña Group and owned by CaixaBank, achieved a total turnover of EUR 4,370 million (up 5.2%) and a net profit of EUR 411 million, down 2.6%, mainly due to of the unfavorable evolution of the investment portfolio, given the poor performance of financial assets in 2022.
Grupo Mutua’s performance in the Multi-risk-Home sector was also very positive in 2022, as turnover in Spain increased to EUR 747 million, 7.4% more than in 2021. In addition, the number of insured increased by 8.9 %, so that the group’s portfolio of Multirisk-Home customers exceeded 2.4 million.
Mutuactivos closed 2022 with a historic record of EUR 740.5 million in net deposits from third parties (in mutual funds, pension plans and life insurance). This represented an increase of 23.3% compared to last year, an excellent milestone given the complex situation of the markets.
The record third-party acquisition takes place in a year marked, moreover, by the repayments of the Mutua Group, the main investor in Mutuactivos, to finance the various business operations it carried out in 2022 (El Corte Inglés and SegurCaixa Adeslas…).
More specifically, last year Mutua signed an agreement with El Corte Inglés to acquire 50.01% of each of the two companies operating El Corte Inglés’ insurance business; i.e. SECI (Life and Accident Insurance) and CESS (Insurance Brokerage) and also take an 8% stake in the capital of the distribution group. The operation amounted to 1.105 million euros and a large part of the repayments requested by Mutua in 2022 was used to finance it.
Mutua Madrileña and CaixaBank, for their part, sealed at the end of January 2022 the extension of the strategic alliance agreed between the bank and the insurer in 2011, allowing SegurCaixa Adeslas to access the new activities resulting from the integration of Bankia. The amount of the agreement was 650 million euros.
Grupo Mutua’s Life business revenues amounted to 379 million, 168% more than last year. The company was boosted by its inclusion in the Mutua de Seguros El Corte Inglés Group and by the launch of new products following the rise in interest rates in the Eurozone and the resulting impact on the profitability and attractiveness of said products.
Geographical diversification is another pillar on which Mutua Madrileña’s profitable growth strategy is based. That is why the company started its international expansion in 2016. Mutua already has a controlling position in Chilean BCI Seguros, with a stake of 60%. This company, leader in non-life insurance in Chile, achieved a turnover of almost 849 million euros, 8.1% more than last year and a net result of more than 60 million euros, 2.6% more than in 2021.
The international activities as a whole contributed to a positive result of the Mutua Group of EUR 24.2 million, 37.8% less than in 2021 due to the lower results of the Colombian company Seguros del Estado, in which it retains a non-majority stake of 45%.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
