Normalised earnings per share in OUTsurance rose by 7.3% to R1.50 per share for the half year to end of December 2025.
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Normalised earnings per share in OUTsurance rose by 7.3% to R1.50 per share for the half year to end of December 2025 after gross written premiums in the company’s property and casualty business grew 17.4%, leading to a 36.2% higher interim dividend of 120.7 cents per share and a 30.3 cents special dividend.
The special dividend was a result of the ongoing monetisation of non-core assets.
Anchor Capital analysts said OUTsurance SA earnings had outperformed expectations, “benefiting from a lower cost-to-income ratio following reduced share-based payment” expenses. Shares in OUTsurance jumped nearly 3% to R70.89 in afternoon trade on the JSE on Wednesday.
Youi, whose earnings slumped by 43.3% had been “impacted by a significant increase in natural perils claims from large storm events” during October/November.
“The group’s property and casualty gross written premium was up 17.4%, and up 20.3% on a constant currency basis. Despite rand strength, new business premiums accelerated by 24.2% (with) OUTsurance Ireland is contributing more meaningfully to the new business profile and accounts for 1.7% of group gross written premiums,” said Anchor Capital.
OUTsurance said its financial performance for the six months period under review reflected strong financial performance in South Africa and a volatile weather period in Australia. The impact of volatile weather patterns in Australian had “masked an otherwise strong organic growth” performance.
“Although earnings volatility over short measurement periods can be elevated, the OOUTsurance Holdings Group benefits from its geographically diverse earnings base,” it said.
Analysts at Anchor Capital said OUTsurance “appears well positioned for continued organic growth, with this trajectory remaining favourable, while “the group still has relatively low market share” in key segments.
However, “Ireland remains loss-making during its early scale-up phase” although “monthly losses should trend lower” in the second half of the current year.
The OUTsurance Group operates in the South African, Australian and Irish insurance markets, servicing 3.7 million policies and employing more than 8,100 employees.
The company said on Wednesday that claims ratios for its property and casualty division increased from 53.0% to 58.6%, attributable to “the large increase in retained natural peril claims which represented 12.4% of net earned premium compared to the 6.5% for the six months” in the year earlier period. This was due mainly to catastrophe events and higher storm frequency in Australia.
“The comparative period was particularly benign from a weather perspective,” said the company. Excluding natural perils, the working loss ratio improved from 49.3% to 48.4%.
The normalised cost-to-income ratio for OUTsurance’s property and casualty business, nonetheless, improved from 32.7% to 27.5%. this has been attributed to large structural reduction in share-based payment expenses and overall expense efficiency across the group.
It replaced the Employee Share Option Scheme with the Conditional Share Plan which it described as “significantly less geared” to share price movements.
In Ireland, OUTsurance’s monthly loss profile is expected to reduce over the second half of the financial year in line with the forecast break-even profile.
However, the impact of the lower yield environment on investment income was offset by the strong performance in the equity market and increase in the size of the insurance liabilities.
“OUTsurance Life delivered a pleasing operational performance marked by good new business growth and improved cost efficiency. From a financial perspective, the strong performance was offset by the impact of the extraordinary reduction in the South African yield curve following positive macro-economic developments in South Africa,” said the company.
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