MUNICH (dpa-AFX) - Higher premiums in the property and casualty business have given Allianz a surprisingly good start to the year. In the first quarter, the insurer achieved an operating profit of almost four billion euros, almost seven percent more than a year earlier, as it announced in Munich on Wednesday. CEO Oliver Bäte believes that the DAX-listed group is on course to achieve an operating profit of 13.8 to 15.8 billion euros this year. Nevertheless, the news was met with price losses on the stock market.

Allianz shares lost a good one percent to 262.40 euros in the morning. This made it one of the biggest losers in the DAX and it was only trading at a good eight percent higher than at the turn of the year. At the beginning of April, the share price had reached its highest level since 2001 at 280 euros. However, the record high of more than 396 euros from the year 2000 is still a long way off.

Industry expert Will Hardcastle from the major Swiss bank UBS attested Allianz a strong start to the year with minor weaknesses. The basic claims ratio, for example, failed to meet market expectations, as did the solvency ratio, which fell from 206 to 203 percent between the end of December and the end of March.

In the first quarter, Allianz increased its business volume by five percent to 48.4 billion euros. Price increases in the property and casualty business made a particular contribution to this. The net profit attributable to shareholders even grew by around 22 percent to just under 2.5 billion euros. However, the sale of the Lebanon business had depressed the result a year earlier. Allianz now performed better than analysts had expected, both in day-to-day business and at the bottom line.

This was mainly due to property and casualty insurance, which increased its operating profit by a good ten percent to just under 2.1 billion euros. Allianz is now demanding higher premiums from many customers, as repairs to cars and buildings, for example, have recently become significantly more expensive. The insurer now also allows used spare parts for car repairs in Germany in order to reduce costs.

The fact that the property and casualty division increased its operating profit so strongly in the first quarter was also due to lower losses from natural disasters and higher investment income in the division. Claims, administration and sales accounted for 91.9 percent of insurance turnover, the same amount as a year earlier.

In life and health insurance, the result remained stable at 1.3 billion euros. However, Allianz was able to increase the value of its new business in this segment from 1 billion to 1.3 billion euros.

Meanwhile, in the fund business, the Group subsidiary Pimco and Allianz Global Investors collected even more money from investors than analysts had expected. The funds received a net inflow of more than 34 billion euros in the first quarter. Pimco accounted for 32 billion euros of this and the majority was in fixed-interest investments. The majority of investors sold equity funds. In total, the companies managed assets of just under 1.8 trillion euros for customers. Thanks to higher income, the fund division increased its operating profit by seven percent to 773 million euros./stw/ngu/jha/