However, across the life business, Annual Premium Equivalent (APE) totalled £651m, a 1% decrease.
The insurer said this “figure was ahead of expectations” despite the impact of the Retail Distribution Review on its Retail bond business and the closure of its Unitised Fixed Rate Bond (UFRB) product.
APE was boosted in the second half of 2013 by Corporate Savings (ZCS) business attracting major new schemes.
Meanwhile, the insurer’s new business value was at £107m (a change of -13%). This exceeded expectations, driven by the strong growth of Zurich’s Retail and Corporate Protection businesses, Zurich said.
Additionally, its new business margin experienced no change at 16.4%. This reflected increased levels of higher margin corporate and retail protection business compared to the same time last year.
Gary Shaughnessy, CEO of Zurich UK Life said the results reinforced the business is following the right strategy.
He explained: “2013 was a year of successful transformation for Zurich UK Life following the regulatory reforms of the market and we have continued to deliver a strong performance, especially when you take into account that we’ve not had the ‘one-off’ reserving benefits in 2013 that we saw the previous year. We are pleased with how our insurance businesses are growing and their underlying profitability.
“In particular, our core Protection businesses have grown rapidly. We achieved a double-digit market share in the retail individual protection market for the first time in 2013. Further, our Corporate Risk business was the market leader in Group Life new business.”
He also said the business paid out more than £531m in claims in 2013 and accepted 94% of claims for both retail income protection and critical illness policies.
