Forecasts & Results
Lloyd’s has published its unaudited preliminary results for 2023.
Posted 08/03/2024 – Quick takes
Lloyd’s has published its unaudited preliminary results for 2023.
Headline figures
- Gross Written Premium increased by 11.6% to £52.1bn (FY 2022: £46.7bn) reflecting 4% organic growth and +7% rate increase.
- The market’s combined ratio improved by 7.9 percentage points to 84.0% (FY 2022: 91.9%).
- The attritional loss ratio remained stable at 48.3% (FY 2022: 48.4%), while the expense ratio remained flat at 34.4% (FY 2022: 34.4%).
- Investment return of £5.3bn (FY 2022: loss of £3.1bn), reflects the higher interest rate environment and the unwind of the mark-to-market accounting treatment on fixed income portfolios.
- Underwriting profit increased by £3.3bn to £5.9bn (FY 2022: £2.6bn).
Burkhard Keese commented on the preliminary result and said:
“2023 was an outstanding year for the Lloyd’s market. We continued to see sustainable, profitable growth and performance, leading to our best underwriting result in recent history and a rock solid balance sheet that gives us and our stakeholders confidence in an uncertain environment.
We will maintain our focus on underwriting and capital discipline and we look forward to announcing our full results and strategic progress later this month.”
Alpha Comment
Lloyd’s has published a strong set of preliminary 2023 results. We had expected to see a significant reduction in the major claims ratio as our underwriters have been reporting that whilst the 2023 year saw several major events which amounted to over $100bn of losses, no single event has been costly to the market. This was also echoed in the plc results reported by Hiscox, Lancashire and Beazley this week. However, it is disappointing to see no change to the expense ratio which had been a focus in recent years. The investment return of £5.3bn is greater in quantum than the loss recorded in the 2022 results which is encouraging. An overall profit in excess of £10bn for the market is an exceptional result. The full Lloyd’s results will be published on 28th March.
