Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance Co., South Korea’s No. 1 non-life insurer under top conglomerate Samsung Group, saw its fourth-quarter and last year`s operating profit surge year over year on one-off investment gains.

Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday that it raised 230.7 billion won ($205.4 million) in operating profit in the October-December period last year, up 33.2 percent from the same period a year ago. Sales rose 3.3 percent to 4.5 trillion won, and net profit quadrupled to 154.3 billion won.

For full 2018, Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance announced on January 31 that it raised 1.07 trillion won in net profit, up 1.8 percent from a year ago. Operating profit jumped 15.7 percent to 1.46 trillion won and sales 0.9 percent to 22.2 trillion won. The non-life insurer said that it saw a surge in operating profit despite a rise in loss ratio last year thanks to higher investment gains. When excluding the one-off gains from the sale of its headquarters building in Euljiro, central Seoul, and equity holding in Samsung Electronics Co., net profit is nearly unchanged from a year ago.

Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance, meanwhile, recently raised its auto premium by 3 percent after to offset a 5-percentage point on-year increase in the cumulative loss ratio for auto insurance last year.

By Kim Gang-rae and Lee Eun-joo

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