As Swiss Re announced on Friday, nine months later, the account remained at minus $285 million after profits of 1.26 billion a year ago. That was expected after the group warned investors of nearly half a billion losses in the third quarter. In the first half of the year, a profit of approximately 160 million dollars was achieved.
However, the loss was significantly lower than analysts (AWP consensus) had previously expected. They were expecting a minus of $302 million to $663 million.
Hail and drought in Europe, typhoons in Asia, floods in Australia and, above all, hurricanes in North America have brought high costs to insurance companies this year and have been able to pass some of them on to reinsurers. Overall, major claims from natural disasters at Swiss Re in the first nine months reduced earnings by $2.7 billion. Hurricane Ian alone cost 1.3 billion.
After the snow warning in mid-October, the downwardly revised outlook remained unchanged. The reinsurer will likely not reach the initial target return on equity of 10 percent for the full year. Despite the loss, Swiss Re still needs to be activated very well. At the beginning of July, the solvency ratio for the Swiss Solvency Test (SST) was 274 percent, well above the 200 to 250 percent target range.
(SDA)