BH Bank’s insurance subsidiary has just published its financial statements for the first half of the year.
According to the auditor’s report, the highlights of BH Assurance’s activities include a 13.22% growth in the company’s overall business, with premium income of 103.326 million Tunisian dinars, compared to 91.260 million Tunisian dinars in 2023.
Non-life premiums increased by 8% to 60.1 MD, while life premiums increased by 21% to 43.2 MD.
Significant drop in net profit…
Second, the cost of benefits rose from 47.388 MD to 79.007 MD, an increase of 66.73% compared to 2023. This increase was mainly due to two major fire claims, which were heavily reinsured, with a total cost of 19.6 MD (including a charge of 1 MD directly to the income statement). Finally, the net profit fell sharply from 5.029 MD in 2023 to 3.038 MD at June 30, 2024.
Technical commitments reached 361.200 MD compared to 292.597 MD at the end of June 2023, an increase of 23.45%.
Financial income also increased from 13.297 MD at the end of June 2023 to 15.142 MD at June 30, 2024. We tried to find out more about these results, but BH Assurance’s communications department asked us to reread what had been written to validate it, which we refused to do, and suggested a brief meeting with the CEO. We look forward to that!
… which the DG easily explains and promises better results for the year as a whole
Of course, this is only the first half of the year, which will improve at the end of the year, at least as a result of the Provisional Unearned Premiums, according to DG Dalila Badr, who spoke to Africanmanager.
For the insurer, this first period of 2024 was marked by two major claims, including that of SNDP, for which the amount of compensation was quite substantial. We have reinsurers behind us, but according to the regulations in force, we have to charge a minimum of 5% of the amount of the claim (provision),” explains Mrs Badr, who expects that the claim will be settled by then and that the provision will be reversed by June 30, 2024, which should have a direct and positive impact on the company’s balance sheet.
Ongoing tax audit
Furthermore, in their report on the financial statements for the first half of 2024, the company’s statutory auditors deemed it necessary to draw attention to the fact that BH Assurance will be subject to an in-depth tax audit in the 2024 financial year, covering the 2019-2022 financial years. The actual audit by the tax authorities began on February 27, 2024.
The company was notified on July 31, 2024 of a request for a provisional suspension of the in-depth audit for a period of 40 days. At the date of this report, the company has not received a response from the tax authorities and the final impact of this situation cannot be estimated.
During the financial year 2023, BH Assurance was also subject to a one-off tax audit for the financial year 2018. This audit resulted in an automatic tax assessment of TND 1,223,403.
It should also be noted that the net profit for the period ending June 30, 2024 also reflects the introduction of a social solidarity contribution at a rate of 4% for the benefit of the State budget, as provided for in Article 22 of the Finance Act for 2023, and the introduction of a short-term tax at a rate of 4% for the benefit of the State budget, as provided for in Article 64 of the Finance Act for 2024.
