Beazley lifts guidance on combined ratio improvement

Lloyd's of London insurer Beazley lifted annual guidance on Friday on the back of higher cyber risk premiums.

The company said it now expected its combined ratio to be in the high 80s - a level below 100% indicates an underwriting profit.

Beazley reported a first half pre-tax profit of $22m, down from $167m a year earlier, as the firm took losses on its investment portfolio.

“A challenging investment environment has impacted profit; however I’m delighted that we have achieved our best combined ratio at a half year since 2015,” said chief executive Adrian Cox.

“Given the positive experience in the first half of this year we are in a position to update our combined ratio guidance to high 80s for 2022 assuming average claims experience for the second half of the year.”

“We continue to manage actively for inflation and recession and our estimate for the war in Ukraine remains unchanged.”