Lloyd's of London suffers another year of losses as catastrophes take their toll
Lloyd's of London suffered another year of losses in 2018 - albeit smaller than the previous year - as it took a hit from a number of natural disasters but said it had seen "green shoots of improvement".
The insurance market made a loss of £1bn last year compared to a £2bn loss in 2017, as it paid out £19.7bn in claims.
Lloyd's highlighted hurricanes Florence and Michael, Typhoon Jebi in Japan, and the Californian wildfires. It said these disasters led to major claims costing its market £2.9bn, significantly higher than the long-term average of £1.9bn, and contributing to a combined ratio of 104.5% in 2018.
Nevertheless, assets during the year grew 9% to £118bn and Lloyd's net resources increased 2% to £28.2bn.
"Lloyd’s 2018 aggregated results showed green shoots of improvement. After several years of rate softening, the pricing environment saw strengthening by 3.2% on renewal business and the beginning of improvement in the attritional loss ratio which reduced 1.3% on the previous year," it said
Chief executive John Neal said the 2018 performance is not of the standard he would expect "of a market that has both the heritage and quality of Lloyd’s".
"We have implemented stronger performance management measures which will remain an enduring feature of how we go about our business. We expect these actions to deliver progressive performance improvement across the market beginning in 2019 and in the years to come," he said.
The results came a day after the company announced plans to tackle sexual harassment following reports that female staff faced an "entrenched" culture of sexism at the insurance market.