During his address to shareholders at the FBD AGM on Friday, company chair Liam Herlihy said: "FBD's 2018 trading performance to date has been solid, although we have been impacted by the poor winter weather. In particular, Storm Emma is expected to have an overall net cost (after reinstatement premia) of marginally less than €7m, having resulted in over 1,200 claims to date, predominately in the east and south of the country. Our catastrophe property reinsurance programme has worked well to protect FBD and mitigate the net impact of this storm. In addition, attritional weather claims are somewhat higher than last year given the prolonged poor weather.

"However, the underlying profitability of our business continues to be sound. In this current low interest rate environment, investment income continues to be very low and as a result our focus is on underwriting discipline and careful growth in our core markets of farm, business and consumer, as the Irish economy expands."

He also added that: "FBD has embarked on a major multi-million euro branch investment and rebranding programme for all 34 FBD branches nationwide. In addition, we anticipate opening a second Dublin branch on Baggot St, Dublin 4, in June of this year. This expansion of our nationwide branch network is part of our strategy to bring our excellent Irish insurance expertise and value to the local businesses and consumers of our capital city."

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