Nico Life Insurance Company Limited has recorded a remarkable 246 percent surge in profit in the year ended December 2025, reaching K155.6 billion.
This performance has positioned the company as the main growth driver for Malawi Stock Exchange (MSE) -listed Nico Holdings plc in a year when the pension and life insurance sector reaped substantial gains from robust stock market investment returns.
At K155.6 billion, Nico Life Insurance Company Limited, which posted K44.9 billion profit after-tax in 2024, has surpassed the group’s leading subsidiary NBS Bank plc at K150.4 billion and almost contributed half of Nico Holdings plc’s K323 billion consolidated profit, according to the group’s published financial results.
Jointly signed by board chairperson Elias Ngalande and managing director Vizenge Kumwenda, the results confirm how life insurance sector benefited from the market’s strong performance in 2025.
Reads part of the results: “Nico Life Insurance Company Limited registered a 46 percent increase in total insurance revenue to K80 billion from K54.7 billion in 2024. This growth was attributed to organic growth, new businesses and investment returns.”
This performance comes a few months after the Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) Financial Stability Report noted that the life insurance sector was on the verge of benefiting more from MSE soaring share prices in 2025 as 67 percent of its assets are invested on the shares market.
Reads the report in part: “The sector maintained positive growth, recording a 42.5 percent increase in total assets to K3.6 trillion, up from K2.5 trillion in December 2024.
“This growth was primarily driven by strong investment returns, particularly from listed equities, which remained a dominant class of invested assets, accounting for 67.4 percent of total assets.”
The report, however, said sector’s significant exposure to listed equities pose concentration risks, highlighting the increasing vulnerability to equity market downturns which could potentially affect profitability and solvency in times of market slumps.
In an interview, financial analyst Brian Kampanje said pension and life insurance companies have enjoyed massive capital gains on the MSE, accelerating their balance sheet growth and profitability.
“The downward trend on MSE is a cause for concern as the institutional investors are likely to realise lower capital gains which are now taxable,” he said.
Life Insurance and Pension Association of Malawi president Lilian Moyo is quoted as having said that despite the sector’s investments concentrated on MSE, the risk should be determined case-by-case because different institutions assess the risk individually and plan mitigation measures.
She said investors have their own investment strategies and how they deal with investment returns, adding that each of the investors have plans in their investment policies.
Life insurance assets grew by 42.5 percent to K3.6 trillion in six months to June 2025 from K2.5 trillion in December 2024, in a year MSE registered 247 percent return on investment to become Africa’s best performing stock exchange.
