Allianz Australia made a first-quarter operating profit of €58 million ($91.8 million), results from the German parent company show.

The operation ran at a €15 million ($23.7 million) loss in the corresponding period last year.

The turnaround was driven by improved loss and expense management, which offset a decline in gross written premium (GWP) to €717 million ($1.14 billion) from €778 million ($1.23 million).

The loss ratio fell to 71% from 81.8% and the expense ratio to 25.5% from 26.7%.

Premium earned decreased to €636 million ($1 billion) from €695 million ($1.1 billion).

The combined operating ratio improved to 96.5% from 108.5%.

The German insurer’s property and casualty arm made an overall operating profit of €1.27 billion ($2.01 billion) in the March quarter, up 1.2%.

Net income increased 24.3% to €1.07 billion ($1.69 billion), and GWP gained 1.1% to €17.9 billion ($28.34 billion).  The combined operating ratio improved 0.8 percentage points to 94.8%.

Group-wide net income grew 6.8% to €1.94 billion ($3.07 billion).