Major agribusiness Ruralco’s insurance premium income grew $4.6 million to $14.37 million in the year to September.

The 32% rise on the previous year was driven by “an increase in rates in the general market due to increased reinsurance costs being passed on to insurers”, a company report says.

“Both Ruralco Insurance and Ruralco Finance have increased their profile and expanded their presence in a highly competitive market.”

Ruralco says it also benefitted from an expanded team, with “the CGU and NAS alliances [growing] premium… driven by targeted appointments of insurance specialists into the network”.

The company’s overall net profit fell 7.5% to $13.8 million.

Insurance and finance accounted for about 8% of gross profit, up 5% on the previous year’s contribution.

Ruralco recently offered to buy Elders’ rural services operations and merge the two groups’ insurance businesses. The latter has sold its underwriting business but maintains a 25% share in an agency operation with QBE.

However, Elders has since called for tenders on its rural group. Ruralco, already a 12.04% shareholder, says it is interested if the deal is right but details of the bid process have yet to be released.