Investors pick Amlin despite higher losses
LOSSES from catastrophes this year are higher than previously estimated at Lloyd’s insurer Amlin, but it is charging higher rates for its business as a result, it said yesterday.
Shares in Amlin jumped 6.3 per cent in trading and closed five per cent higher as investors welcomed its upbeat outlook on rates. About three quarters of Amlin’s business should benefit from higher rates in areas such as areas hit by disasters.
“The rating environment for catastrophe reinsurance is markedly improved from the early part of the year…We expect this to continue into 2012 with rate increases at 1 January taking US rates back to peak levels,” it said in a statement.
Amlin warned that estimated losses from disasters in the first half had risen by £25m as damage claims increased. Peel Hunt analyst Sarah Lewandowski estimated total losses were about £360m now and were likely to top £400m by the year-end.
But its bullish outlook gave confidence that it would gain from having written 7.1 per cent more premiums than a year ago, at £2.05bn, in the ten months to the end of October.