Drop in catastrophe claims helps insurer Lancashire
(Reuters) — Property/casualty insurer Lancashire Holdings Ltd. declared a 20-cent-per-share special dividend on Thursday as it reported a fall in its third-quarter loss thanks to a drop in catastrophe claims.
Lancashire, which offers insurance coverage for heavy-duty assets such as oil rigs, ships and aircraft, last month warned of catastrophe losses of $25 million to $45 million from recent hurricanes and typhoons.
That led to a negative return-on-equity in the third quarter of 2.2% compared with a negative ROE of 11.9% reported a year earlier.
That was better than last year, however, and its pretax loss narrowed to $25.3 million from $136.4 million a year ago, when it was paying out for the damage caused by hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, as well as a series of Mexican earthquakes.
The company said the third quarter was “at least as active as 2017” in terms of the number of events to impact the industry, but insured losses were smaller.
“Overall, rates are directionally up on last year and, pleasingly, we continue to see rates improving across our specialty lines of business,” Chief Executive Officer Alex Maloney said in a statement.
Lancashire also said gross written premiums fell 19.4% to $115.2 million, hurt by a 30.8% fall in its property business that was also partly due to reinstatement premiums related to the hurricanes.
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