AEGON earnings fall on U.S. claims
May 15, 2015 by George C. Ford, The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Dutch insurer AEGON, corporate parent of Transamerica in Cedar Rapids, on Wednesday reported lower first-quarter earnings primarily due to higher-than-expected claims in the United States.
Underlying earnings before tax fell to $528 million from $565 million in the same quarter of 2014, while net profit dropped to $358.5 million from $444.7 million in the same period last year.
“AEGON reported disappointing underlying earnings this quarter, primarily due to adverse claims experience in the United States,” the company said in a news release. “While the seasonal effect on claims was expected, both the number of claims and amounts were higher than anticipated.”
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected an average increase in pretax profit of 9.2 percent to $612.3 million, while net profit was seen falling 20 percent to $353.9 million.
AEGON’s sales were up 32 percent to $3.2 billion, the result of a stronger U.S. dollar and AEGON’s focus on growing profitable sales in variable annuities, pensions and indexed universal life products.
New life sales were up 20 percent to $625 million, mainly due to increased sales of universal life products in the United States and Asia, and favorable currency movements.
AEGON did not provide an earnings forecast for 2015.