Lloyd's of London hails its best results for 17 years

LLOYD’S of London, the world’s biggest insurance market, has hailed the best set of financial results since 2007, helped by a relative lack of underwriting exposure to catastrophes last year.

- Michael Hunter

The year saw relatively few big-claim events for Lloyd’s, with storms that hit the US covered by domestic insurers there. Although there was more disruption in Europe, much of that was not covered by its policies.

That helped underwriting profit rise to £5.9 billion, up by £3.3 billion year-on-year. Gross written premiums were up 11.6% to £52.1 billion, with volume growth of 4% and prices up 7%, offsetting inflationary trends.

Lloyd’s is a major marine insurer and its chairman, Bruce Carnegie-Brown, told the Standard that this week’s collision in Baltimore, where the Francis Scott Key Bridge was destroyed when struck by the Dali cargo ship, “has the capacity to be the largest ever single marine insurance loss”.

And it came at a time of a “heightened level of activity” for the marine insurance category globally, not least with pirate attacks on ships in the Red Sea heading for the Suez Canal.