Australian insurer sets out reasons for decline
Australian insurer QBE’s UK-based Europe operations reported first half insurance pretax profit of US$83m, down from $278m a year ago.
The European operations saw gross written premium fall 6% to $2.51bn, while the combined operating ratio moved up to 88.3% from 88.0%.
Insurance profit margin narrowed to 5.2% from 16.7%.
”Trading conditions continued to challenge many areas of our business driven by surplus capacity putting additional pressure on renewal rates,” the company said.
Rates fell by 3% in the first half, which was more than the 2.4% the company had expected, but slower than the 3.3% rise seen in the first half of last year.
Net earned premium fell 6% to $1.56bn, principally due to actions to reinsure some of the company’s more volatile UK long-tail claim exposures.
QBE said that it had prepared for the UK’s Brexit vote, and now “we are well positioned to implement the requisite solutions at a relatively nominal cost in the event we can no longer access the single market from the UK”.
Hosted by comedian and actor Tom Allen, 34 Gold, 23 Silver and 22 Bronze awards were handed out across an amazing 34 categories recognising brilliance and innovation right across the breadth of UK general insurance.
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