Lloyd’s Announces Positive 2024 Financial Performance
Lloyd’s of London has released a preliminary trading update for the full-year 2024, ahead of its full results announcement scheduled for March 20. The update provides a snapshot of the market’s performance, including premium growth, underwriting results, investment returns, and the impact of major events.
Burkhard Keese, Lloyd’s CFO, stated that the market maintained its focus on profitability and disciplined expansion. Keese also acknowledged the impact of the California wildfires and expressed sympathies to those affected. He noted that while the full financial impact is still being assessed, the event is not expected to jeopardize the market’s capital.
Preliminary 2024 Results Highlights
- Gross written premium: Increased by 6.5% to £55.5 billion, up from £52.1 billion in 2023. This represents an 8.5% growth rate, primarily driven by the property and reinsurance segments, which demonstrated strong underwriting performance. This increase includes a 0.3% price change and a (2.3)% impact from foreign exchange movements.
- Combined ratio: The market’s combined ratio stood at 86.9%, a rise of 2.9 percentage points from 84% in the prior year. Lloyd’s attributed this increase to significant claims in the second half of the year. Excluding large losses, the underlying combined ratio was 79.1%, a marginal improvement from 80.5% in 2023.
- Attritional loss ratio: Improved to 47.1%, reflecting continued underwriting discipline.
- Expense ratio: Remained unchanged at 34.4%.
- Investment return: Reported at £4.9 billion, down from £5.3 billion in 2023. The portfolio benefited from another year of elevated interest rates, despite some market volatility in the fourth quarter.
- Underwriting profit: Reached £5.3 billion, compared to £5.9 billion in 2023.
- Profit before tax: Totaled £9.6 billion, down from £10.7 billion the previous year.
While not factored into the FY24 results, Lloyd’s estimates a net loss of approximately $2.3 billion from the California wildfires.
It’s worth noting that in the first half of the year, Lloyd’s reported a profit before tax of £4.9 billion, up from £3.9 billion during the same period in 2023. Underwriting profit for the first half of 2024 was £3.1 billion, an increase from £2.5 billion.
