Lancashire Holdings Limited have released their results for the year to 31 December 2021. The result for Lancashire syndicate 2010 managed by Lancashire Syndicates Limited and supported by third party capital is not yet available.  

The 2020 result of 107.8% combined ratio was driven by covid related losses and significant cat events including hurricanes Laura and Sally as well as the California wildfires. The 2021 result of 107.3% combined ratio has also been significantly impacted by cat activity with 34.4% of the loss ratio attributed to cat losses.

Summary results are as follows

 

Year to 31.12.20

Year to 31.12.21

% change

Gross premium written

$814.1m

$1,225.2m

+50%

Net premium earned

$519.4m

$816.1m

+27%

Profit/(loss) before tax

$6m

($57m)

Not meaningful

Claims ratio

59.6%

67.6%

8 points worse

Expense ratio

48.2%

39.7%

8.5 point better

Combined ratio

107.8%

107.3%

0.5 points better

 

Lancashire achieved significant top line growth with a 50% increase in gross written premium. This is predominately in the property and casualty reinsurance segment of the portfolio, which doubled in size. This was achieved partly from a positive rating environment  and the  addition of new underwriting teams to write three new classes of business; accident and health, casualty reinsurance and specialty reinsurance.

The group released $86.5m reserves on prior years, compared to $52m in 2020. A large proportion of this was on the 2020 accident year ($34.5m) due to a lack of reported claims.

There was optimism from CEO Alex Maloney that Lancashire’s approach to cat business will not change going forward. He told the Insurance Insider “we’ve added quite a lot of diversification in the last four years. So, arguably, our business is better balanced, but, clearly, we still think there’s opportunity in cat business”.  

The full results press release can be found here and the analysts’ slide pack here