Insurance, corporate support results drag down RBC financials

Royal Bank of Canada has published its interim financial results, including lower earnings from the group’s insurance unit.

For the quarter ended July 31 (Q3), RBC’s net income amounted to $4.5 billion, a 16% increase from the same period in 2023. The result would have been better if not for two units that posted either a loss or a decline in income.

“Higher results in personal & commercial banking, capital markets, and wealth management were partially offset by lower results in corporate support and insurance,” RBC noted.

Here’s how the different divisions fared in the quarter:

Explaining its insurance unit’s performance, RBC said: “Net income of $170 million decreased $45 million or 21% from a year ago, largely due to lower insurance investment result from lower favourable investment-related experience, partially offset by lower capital funding costs.

“This was partially offset by higher insurance service result, largely attributable to improved claims experience in life retrocession and business growth across the majority of our products. The results in the prior period are not fully comparable as we were not managing our asset and liability portfolios under IFRS 17.

“Compared to last quarter, net income decreased $7 million or 4%, largely due to lower insurance investment result from lower favourable investment-related experience. This factor was largely offset by higher insurance service result, mainly due to business growth across the majority of our products.”

The loss from the corporate support operations, meanwhile, was mainly attributed to the after-tax impact of the HSBC Canada transaction and integration costs worth $125 million.

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