For the second consecutive year, Church Mutual Insurance Company posted record premium production and policyholders’ surplus marks, according to President and CEO Mike Ravn.
That wasn’t the extent of the good news for 2013 shared by Ravn at the company’s annual meeting Wednesday.
“We were aided by our lowest claim volume (28,212) in 25 years,” President and CEO Mike Ravn said. “That is mind-boggling. It allows us to say we’re doing a lot of things right like teaming with our customers for effective risk management.”
Other impressive numbers:
• A combined ratio of 91.7 percent, which includes pure loss, loss adjustment expense, other underwriting expense and dividend ratios. That came on the heels of a 92.5 mark the year before
• Direct written premium production topping the $600 million mark for the first time in history at $618.6 million — a gain of 4.6 percent over 2012
• A $46.8 million net underwriting gain
• An almost $58 million gain, increasing policyholders’ surplus to $473.2 million
“That is huge for a mutual company,” Ravn observed. It’s a wonderful story. On almost every metric you look at, we hit the ball out of the park in 2013.”
The year also reflects an investment in a state-of-the-art information technology system. It is expected to enable Church Mutual to raise the quality of its analytics for underwriting and marketing. While the result of the investment is a small loss in 2013 of $4.9 million, it promises to provide substantial efficiencies in future underwriting and claims operations and more responsive policyholder services.
It also holds the potential to generate new revenue streams for the company because of a joint venture Church Mutual completed at year-end with Tech Mahindra. This joint venture will permit the two companies to license the software for further development and sales to other insurance companies in the United States and internationally.
Church Mutual, which now employs 930 people, is rated A (Excellent) by industry rating analyst A.M. Best. It insures more than twice as many religious organizations as its nearest competitor.