Lloyd’s of London cheers strong results despite paper loss in 2022
The centuries-old insurance marketplace Lloyd’s of London reported a significant uptick in premiums last year, though mark-to-mark accountancy rules saw it book a pre-tax £800m loss in 2022.
Lloyd’s expects that loss to reverse in the coming years as interest rates boost investments and assets reach maturity.
The Lime Street icon reported underwriting profits of £2.6bn, up £900m on the year before, and gross written premium up 19 per cent to £46.7bn.
The strong set of results comes despite the losses accrued by the industry as a result of the war in Ukraine and the disastrous Hurricane Ian, which was the second most costly natural disaster in history for the industry.
The marketplace’s combined ratio – effectively, the difference between premiums written and payouts – was 91.9 per cent, the strongest it has been since 2015 and a 1.6 percentage point improvement on last year.
said this morning “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.
“Looking to 2023, Lloyd’s expects strong premium growth to around £56bn, a combined ratio below 95% and a total investment performance on our assets of more than 3% – enabling us to support customers through the uncertain times ahead.”
Neal, who has recently called on the Square Mile to get back into the office more on a Monday, oversaw the impressive year despite a serious motorcycle accident.