Hiscox Ltd (LON:HSX) made no change to its estimates for coronavirus-related insurance claims and said rates at its Lloyds of London business have picked up strongly.
After a loss-making first half, the FTSE 250-listed insurer said since June its performance has been “resilient” on a financial and operational basis, and that it has “ample liquidity to pay claims and execute its growth plans in improving market conditions”.
The third quarter of 2020 has seen a high frequency of natural catastrophes, affecting its Lloyds syndicates and its reinsurance arms, with the most active North American wind season on record and another disastrous wildfire season in California, though the severity of individual catastrophe events has not reached the levels of the past three years.
It has reserved US$75mln net for catastrophe claims in the third quarter, including claims from Hurricane Laura based on an insured market loss of $8bn.
Hiscox’s retail arm benefited from government restrictions easing and economic activity increasing in the third quarter, reporting gross written premiums of US$1.7bn for the nine months of the year, up 4% year on year.
Retail saw a number of large fine art claims and a large cyber loss reported in September, while rates remain stable in Europe but were up 7% in the US.
The Lloyds arm was up 7% to US$772.9mln, while the reinsurance and investment arm saw gross written premium fall 7% to US$763.6mln even though the market continues to harden significantly, with rates up 12% in the year.