Swiss Life Holding AGs Profit Climbed 2.2%

14 Aug 2013

Switzerland’s biggest life insurance company, Swiss Life Holding AG, says its 1st half profit climbed 2.2% after the increase in premium income. According to the average estimate of 7 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, its Net income rose from 360 million francs to 367.9 million francs ($396 million), in this year.

Chief Executive Officer of Swiss Life, Bruno Pfister, announced cost cuts of as much as 160 million francs in November, and plans to eliminate as many as 400 jobs in Germany and Switzerland. The insurer also cut its targeted return on equity to between 8% and 10% over the next three years.

Switzerland’s Swiss Life Group is the largest life insurance company of the country and has its headquarters in Zurich. In 1857, Conrad Widmer established Schweizerische as the first life insurance company in Switzerland, and Alfred Escher was integrally involved in the development of the cooperative. The company’s goal was to provide insurance against the uncertainties of life to Swiss families. A year after Widmer obtained a license in Prussia in 1866, it started business operations in Hamburg and Bremen. Beginning in as far back as 1894, the establishment was one of the first insurance companies to offer occupational insurance. Rentenanstalt expanded to the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, Netherlands, Italy and Belgium between 1866 and 1987.

For more information about Switzerland, like us on Facebook.