New India Assurance Company Ltd (NIACL) is a bright star today morning; the stock opened almost status quo at Rs.174.85 and soon jumped up 11.5% to hit a new 52-week high at Rs.194.55. The stock, in fact has been hitting new highs consistently since 17th Nov’23.

There is no new development as such in the company just the call for an investors and analysts meet on 29th Nov to discuss the Q2 and H1FY24 earnings.

The results were announced on 8th Nov and the company’s Gross Premium Written stood at Rs.20,760 crore, up 8% (YoY) for H1FY24. Net premium earned rose 11% to Rs.16,125 crore while PAT for the quarter came in at Rs.60 crore, more than halved from Rs.152 crore.

Explaining this, the company’s CMD, Ms.Neerja Kapur said that Q2FY24 was one of the most challenging quarters for the company in recent times. The company suffered CAT losses on account of floods amounting to net of Rs. 301 crore. There was adverse development in the aviation portfolio of about Rs.50 crore and foreign operations were also under pressure as they reported losses of about Rs.71 crore during the quarter driven by risk losses in Dubai operations and CAT losses in UK operations.

The CMD is optimistic looking ahead, saying that though a confluence of multiple events affected the results for the quarter, Motor and Health portfolio registered growth and expects profitability of these verticals to improve going forward and hopes to deliver improved results in the ensuing quarters.