Solid results from BHSF
Birmingham-based health cash plan provider BHSF has reported ‘strong operating results’ in spite of a 4.1% decrease in premium income resulting from the economic downturn.

Earned premium income fell to £34.4m in the year ended 31 December 2009 against £35.8m the previous year as job losses continued to impact on the health insurance sector. Claims costs fell by 4.6% to £24.9m, whilst a reduction in administrative expenses helped contain costs to £7.5m against £8.1m the previous year. The result was a respectable 20% increase in surplus on the technical account to £1.8m.

The non-technical account also performed better than the previous year, with investment income up more than two-fold to £772,000 and unrealised gains on investment totaling £1.4m compared to a loss of £3.1m the previous year. Overall, this helped produce a pre-tax surplus of £3.8m against a loss of £1.4m in 2008.

The Group said it would continue to explore merger and acquisition opportunities to build on its expansion, kicked off in 2008 with the acquisition of Forester Health, now named Cash4Health.

In his statement, chairman Paul Kanas said: ‘Our trading produced a good outcome and beyond that the recovery in share values helped a lot. However, the backdrop to our operations is still the UK’s general economic position which remains poor and has already taken its toll on a number of our client organisations and on many policyholders. Despite this we remain upbeat and anticipate another good year in 2010.’



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