23rd Mar 2023 08:33
(Alliance News) - Lloyd's of London on Thursday reported an "outstanding underwriting result" in 2022 but still fell into loss due to a net loss on investment.
The insurance marketplace swung to a pretax loss of GBP800 million from a profit of GBP2.3 billion in 2021.
This was due to a net investment loss of GBP3.1 billion, swung from a GBP900 million profit.
More positively, underwriting profit rose by 53% to GBP2.6 million from GBP1.7 billion on a 19% rise in gross written premiums to GBP46.7 billion from GBP39.2 billion. Combined ratio improved to 91.9% in 2022 from 93.5%. A ratio below 100% indicates an underwriting profit, so the lower the better.
Lloyd's of London said the improved combined ratio was achieved despite major losses, including claims from the war in Ukraine and from Hurricane Ian in the US, contributing 12.7 percentage points to it. In total, Lloyd's paid out GBP21 billion on customers claims last year.
Looking to 2023, Lloyd's of London expects gross written premiums to rise to about GBP56 billion, with a combined ratio below 95%. It also expects a better investment result, guiding a total investment performance on assets of more than 3%.
"This is an outstanding underwriting result that follows several years of performance improvement, a comprehensive plan to digitalise our market, steady and sustained progress on our culture and purposeful action to help our industry and society manage the biggest challenges of our time," Chief Executive Officer John Neal said.
Lloyd's said its capital and solvency position improved. Central solvency rose to 412% in 2022 from 388% in 2021, while market-wide solvency rose to 181% from 177%. Net resources were GBP40.2 billion at year-end, up from GBP36.6 billion a year before.
By Tom Waite, Alliance News editor
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