Swiss Re reports Q1 2011 results

Swiss Re has reported a net loss of USD $665 million for the first quarter of 2011, compared to a profit of USD $158 million in the same period of 2010. Property & Casualty was impacted by a very high level of natural catastrophe claims, including the earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand and the floods in Australia, the company said.

Stefan Lippe, Swiss Re’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “In the first quarter of 2011, we experienced exceptionally high losses from natural catastrophes. In the renewals following these events, we maintained our focused and disciplined underwriting approach.  We were able to grow our P&C treaty book by 13% year to date and to outperform the market in terms of pricing adequacy.”

Property & Casualty reported an operating loss of USD $1.2 billion, compared to an operating income of USD $259 million in the first quarter of 2010. This result was largely driven by natural catastrophe pre-tax losses of USD $2.3 billion. The combined ratio for Property & Casualty rose to 163.7% in the first quarter of 2011, compared to 109.4% in the prior-year period. The net impact from natural catastrophes on the combined ratio was 89.4 percentage points, which was 79.8 percentage points above the expected level.

Life & Health reported an operating income of USD $144 million in the first quarter of 2011, compared to USD $245 million in the prior-year period. The change in operating performance was driven by less favourable mortality and variable annuity results, only partially offset by favourable morbidity experience. The benefit ratio increased to 89.4% in the first quarter of 2011.

Asset Management delivered a strong operating income of USD $1.2 billion in the reporting period, compared to USD $0.9 billion in the first quarter of 2010. The annualized return on investments was 4.0% in the first quarter of 2011, compared to 2.8% in the first quarter of 2010.

Details of first-quarter performance (Q1 2011 vs Q1 2010)

Print