Third-quarter cat budgets at the four major European reinsurers should largely be able to contain the impact from Hurricane Harvey, even if the storm generates a $20bn industry insured loss, according to UBS analyst Jonny Urwin.
P&C (re)insurance carriers delivered healthy returns in the second quarter, with the majority posting results that beat Wall Street expectations, yet investors were quick to punish companies on the stock market as underlying performances weakened.
Investment returns across the companies in our coverage universe were slightly up year-on-year in the three months to 30 June 2017, but remained at anaemic single-digit levels.
P&C (re)insurers benefited from another quarter of below-average catastrophe losses, as global cat events were absent in the three months to 30 June 2017.
Underwriting results across The Insurance Insider's main groups of P&C (re)insurance companies were helped by a low level of catastrophe losses in the quarter, yet underlying deteriorations continued to pressure margins.
Softening rates and a competitive market environment led most of the companies in The Insurance Insider's coverage universe to post lower top line growth rates in the second quarter of 2017 compared to the same period of last year.
