Insurer Swiss Life Holding AG (SZLMY.PK, SLHN.VX) Thursday reported a 14 percent increase in total premium income for the first quarter while fee income grew 6 percent from last year.
Bruno Pfister, Swiss Life Group CEO, said, "We are very satisfied with our business development over the first quarter of 2013. All the market units contributed to the significant increase in premium volume.''
Total premium income climbed to 6.97 billion Swiss francs ($7.14 billion) from 6.11 billion francs in the prior year. Fee income increased 6 percent in the quarter to 284 million francs.
Premium income from Switzerland advanced 10 percent to 4.62 billion francs, amid strong demand from the Swiss SME sector for full-insurance solutions in occupational provisions.
France generated 11 percent more premium income at 1.2 billion francs, driven by growth in life business.
In Germany, Swiss Life posted premium volume of 490 million francs, growing 8 percent year-over-year.
The International market unit improved its result in the first quarter by 64 percent to 686 million francs.
In Swiss Life Asset Managers, net new asset inflows totaled 1.6 billion francs.
Non-annualised net investment return was 1.4 percent, amid a robust direct return and additional realised gains on its bond portfolio, compared to 0.9 percent last year.
Further, the company said its group-wide program "Swiss Life 2015" has got off to a good start and that the integration of Swiss Life Select into existing market units of Switzerland and International has already been completed.
The firm said the application of the amended IFRS accounting principles has restated its net profit for 2012 financial year to 99 million francs from the previous 93 million francs.
The stock closed up 2.1 percent in Zurich on Wednesday at 161.30 francs.
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