Allianz Cornhill reports £92.4m first half operating profit

Allianz Cornhill reported a pretax operating profit up 13.2% to £92.4m for the first half of 2004.

Releasing its results for the six months ended 30 June 2004, Allianz Cornhill said gross written premiums for general insurance were up 2.3% from the 2003 figures, reaching £936.6m, compared with £915.5m for the previous year.

The group combined ratio remained steady at 95.1%, compared with the 95.9% reported for the same period in the previous year.

For the company's commercial lines business, gross written premiums went up 2.3% to £561m, with a combined ratio of 95%.

Allianz Cornhill personal lines reported gross written premiums of £374.8m, up 2.2% on the previous year, and a combined ratio of 94.8%.

Allianz Cornhill chief executive Andrew Torrance said: “I am very pleased that the strong performance of 2003 is continuing.

“Our disciplined approach to underwriting has been a major contributory factor and this stance will continue across all lines of business. The absence of any catastrophic losses has also been helpful.

“Our combined ratio has moved modestly downward and we continue to effectively manage our expense performance in a downward direction and we are primarily addressing this through the development of our operation in India, which is proceeding to plan.”