Okay, so it wasn’t a great result for Australia’s largest general insurer. But NRMA Insurance’s 2000/01 net profit of $143 million, announced on Friday, is still being hailed by analysts as a significant advance.

Certainly the company’s annual result, its first since becoming a public company, was a big improvement on its $3 million first-half shocker. Weak investments – NRMA Insurance has about half its assets in the sharemarket – brought the profit down to $272 million less than it predicted in its prospectus.

But gross written premium income was up 21% to $3.2 billion. And the insurance profit of $210 million – up 91% from last year’s figure – was the reason for the analysts’ cheer.

Acting CEO Ian Brown told a media conference that he believes the operational result stacks up against the performance of any other Australian insurer. There’s still a lot to be done, however. New Zealand’s State Insurance – which NRMA bought from CGNU in February – made a loss of $13.3 million.

But Mr Brown is enthusiastic about the company’s immediate future, with the promise that its new workers’ comp operation (bought from HIH) and its growing health insurance and commercial insurance services will bring new customers and increasing profits in the years ahead.