Lloyd’s profits down 52% thanks to large loss events

Lloyd’s of London has announced it’s results and profits for the first half of 2010. As we know, the first half of this year has seen a large number of loss events and a drop in profit has been experienced by reinsurers around the world. Lloyd’s is now the latest to demonstrate the impact large loss events are having.

First half profits for Lloyd’s came in at £682m, that’s down 52% on the same period of 2009 when they booked over £1.3b in profits. The first six months of this year have been the costliest on record for Lloyd’s.

High catastrophe claims and major events such as the earthquake in Chile and the Deepwater Horizon oil platform disaster and spill have contributed to Lloyd’s drop in profit significantly.

Net incurred claims have risen by 21% to £5.4b. The Chilean quake alone is estimated to have cost Lloyd’s $1.4b and Deepwater Horizon is estimated as anywhere between $300m-$600m.

So 2010 is certainly proving to be a year of large losses so far and no one is escaping the impact of them. As we wrote yesterday, the volume of smaller P&C claims is contributing heavily to the total this year, demonstrating that it is not just large loss events which affect the market. Will this turn the price declines seen in P&C insurance though? That is unlikely to happen without another major loss event this year.