Manulife Financial Corp. Chief Executive Officer Roy Gori sees a tougher road ahead, even after the insurer posted its biggest drop in earnings in more than seven years, with the coronavirus pandemic weighing on its business.

The second quarter “will be perhaps more challenging than even Q1, and the operating and macroeconomic environments are obviously incredibly challenging and difficult to predict,” Gori said in an interview after Manulife reported first-quarter earnings that missed analysts’ expectations. “We’re in a reasonably strong position and I’m confident that we’ll navigate that.”

The pandemic and plunging oil prices hurt investment returns at Canada’s largest life insurer, driving down overall net income and earnings in Asia, Canada and the U.S. Core earnings fell 34 per cent to $1.03 billion (US$731 million), or 51 cents a share, missing the 59-cent average estimate of 15 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Gori said that the COVID-19 crisis had “reasonably modest” impacts on areas such as forbearance, sales and claims -- including a $50 million charge tied to travel insurance -- while market-related “second-order impacts” had a “significant” impact, with a $600 million charge tied to investments.

A sharp decline in oil prices caused Manulife to lose about $750 million in its oil and gas holdings in its alternative long-duration asset portfolio in the first quarter.

Manulife shares rose as much as 4 per cent Thursday in Toronto trading. They have dropped by more than a third this year.

Executives told analysts on a conference call Thursday that Manulife is committed to maintaining its dividend and meeting its medium-term financial goals, though its earnings-per-share growth goal will be harder to reach in 2020.

“In light of the current environment, we would not expect to achieve our medium-term core EPS growth target of 10 per cent to 12 per cent this year,” Chief Financial Officer Phil Witherington said on the call.