Brit 2001 losses swell

Losses are deepening on Brit's Syndicate 250 for the 2001 year of account.

Updated forecasts put its loss as high as half of its £99.8m capacity.

This developed from a previous forecast of a loss of between 35% and 2.5% to between 45% and 50%.

The change was due to late casualty claims and other claims growing. Brit owns 46% of the syndicate for 2001.

Brit, the largest Lloyd's underwriter, also announced deteriorating results on its Syndicate 429 for the same year. The syndicate is forecast to lose between 20% and 30% of its £7.9m capacity for 2001. It was merged into Syndicate 389 in 2002.

But Brit's other forecasts were positive.

Greater accuracy on forecasts for the loss from the 11 September terrorist attacks was behind a small improvement on Syndicate 735's result.

The forecast showed a loss of between 60% and 67.5% from a previous forecast of a loss of between 60% and 70%. Brit owns 93% of the syndicate for 2001.

Syndicates 250 and 735 were merged with Syndicates 800 and 1202 on 1 January 2002 to form Syndicate 2987.

The new syndicate's performance improved for the 2002 year of account, which is now expected to create a profit of 10% - 15% of its £450m capacity - which is 98% owned by Brit.

The previous forecast for the merged syndicate had been a profit of 9% -14%.

The result would be even higher, at between 13.5% and 18.5%, were it not for an internal quota share arrangement.

The company said that trading conditions were now good except for the aviation business, which it pulled out of earlier this month.