elipsLife | Annual report 2017
12
Consolidated annual report
3 Consolidated annual report 3.1 | Management report 3.1.1 | Business development For elipsLife, 2017 was a year with many ups and downs. But some volatility is presumably a typical feature of “successful” start-ups that are in the process of growing up. While 2015 was overshadowed by the Swiss franc crisis and 2016 was dominated by low interest rates, 2017 for elipsLife centred on expansion, investments and volatility. Although interest rates remained low, the euro recovered against the Swiss franc, which helped elipsLife stabilise further. As the company is investing in new markets in the eurozone at present, however, the positive effect of the stronger euro did not have quite the same impact as the weak euro in 2015. The cost ratio could nevertheless be maintained at an advantageous 16.6 %, not least because of a policy of rigid cost control. Because of some major accident claims in the fourth quarter and the reinforcement of reserves for the Swiss disability business, earnings were not very good. The company also invested heavily in the expansion of its IT infrastructure and the further development of its core systems, both of which account for a major share of the total costs. As the new markets wrote comparatively little business they did not boost the profit, which was modest at CHF 0.4 million. However, elipsLife once again demonstrated its already considerable robustness in the reporting year: by now, the company can finance even major investments in new markets itself and still end the year in the black. Like 2016, 2017 was a year characterised by enormous growth. Premiums earned rose from CHF 786.2 million to CHF 937.9 million. Premium volume for the core business improved from CHF 243.6 million to CHF 318.0 million, which equals an increase of almost 30 %. The Irish Medex business did well again and increased from CHF 542.6 million in the previous year to CHF 619.9 million. At the same time, total assets increased from CHF 721.7 million to CHF 903.1 million. The constant expansion of the target operating model continued to be a focal topic for elipsLife in 2017. After the new claims module was commissioned in the previous year and the new platform could therefore be operated end-to-end, all contracts were migrated in the reporting year and the automatic reservation engine was activated. The IT infrastructure was also adapted to the new global challenges and the front-end digitisation concepts were finalised, meaning that this concept can be implemented in the coming years.