Lloyd’s reports strong preliminary results for Full Year 2024

Lloyd’s has provided preliminary guidance of its year end results. These remain subject to final audit and adoption by the Council. Headlines are as follows:

• Gross Written Premium increased by 6.5% to £55.5bn (FY 2023: £52.1bn) reflecting 8.5% growth, primarily in the property and reinsurance segments which had a strong underwriting performance in the year, 0.3% price change and FX movements of (2.3)%.
• The market’s combined ratio is 86.9%, an increase of 2.9 percentage points from the prior year (FY 2023: 84.0%), driven by major claims in the second half of the year. Excluding large losses, the underlying combined ratio is 79.1% (FY 2023: 80.5%).
• The attritional loss ratio improved to 47.1% reflecting continued underwriting discipline (FY 2023: 48.3%), while the expense ratio remained flat at 34.4% (FY 2023: 34.4%).
• The investment return is £4.9bn (FY 2023: £5.3bn), with the portfolio benefitting from another year of high interest rates, notwithstanding some market volatility in the fourth quarter.
• Underwriting profit is £5.3bn (FY 2023: £5.9bn) and the overall profit before tax is £9.6bn (2023: £10.7bn).

The full results with further detail will be delivered on 20 March. Lloyd’s has also given some guidance as the estimated cost to the market arising out of January’s wildfires in Los Angeles. As this event took place after the end of the accounting period, any exposures are not included in the accounts to 31 December 2024. Lloyd’s current estimate is a net loss to the market from the wildfires of $2.3 billion

We are continuing to receive syndicate results for the 2022 underwriting year, and updated forecasts for the 2023 year. We expect that we will have a complete listing by Thursday 13^th March.