The Swiss firm has become the latest insurer to unveil its data from a unique time last year.
Zurich Insurance Group has joined several other insurers in sharing its insurance industry 2020 performance. The chief executive of the group, Mario Greco, has expressed confidence moving forward, despite seeing dropping results across all the insurer’s primary business lines.
That said, despite the fact that it saw an 8 percent year over year reduction, it still reached $3.8 billion. The statement from Zurich Insurance Group when unveiling its performance results explained the decline as primarily attributable to the impact of COVID-19 in the first half of 2020.
The group’s data for the twelve months ending December 31, 2020 showed a business operating profit (BOP) of $2.1 billion in the property and casualty business, when compared to $2.9 billion in 2019. The life BOP was $1.4 billion during that time period, compared to $1.5 billion the year before. Farmers Insurance line BOP was down to $1.5 billion from $1.7 billion in 2019. Finally, the BOP for group business saw a notable decline from $5.3 billion in 2019 to only $4.2 billion last year.
Zurich Insurance Group pointed out that the financial impact linked with the COVID-19 pandemic was $852 million.
Of that total associated with the global pandemic, $450 million was specific to the property and casualty business.
Greco stated that despite 2020’s reduced profit, he is satisfied with the company’s operations throughout that unique and challenging time, particularly in the first half of the year.
“Our results confirm the strength of our business, the agility of our people, and the timeliness of our digital strategy. We kept our business fully operational throughout the year and our actions underlined our strong sense of social 
responsibility,” said the Zurich Insurance Group CEO in a statement. “We stayed closer to our customers than ever before, helping them beyond our contractual obligations, including refunds and discounts, waiving exclusions for pandemic, adjusting premiums, suspending cancellations, and working with them to change payment plans or providing tenants with partial rent relief.”
