Hardy Underwriting saw a 49% rise in first-half pretax profits, helped by a benign claims season and strong property and catastrophe underwriting prices.
Hardy Underwriting reported a 49% rise in first-half pretax profits, helped by a benign claims season and strong property and catastrophe underwriting prices.
Pretax profits for the half year to end-June rose to £9.1m from £6.1m last year.
First-half gross written premiums rose to £88.8m, up from £58.4m. Group combined ratio fell to 79.5%, down from 84.4% a year earlier.
In line with the rest of its Lloyd's peers, there is a belief at Hardy that insurance industry prices are falling.
"Overall the market is progressively softening," chief executive Barbara Merry told Thomson Financial News in an interview, adding that the aviation insurance sector - a key business for Hardy - "continues to be a problem."
However, she noted that aviation insurance was not at a 'critical trigger point.'
"We can keep volumes relatively stable," she said, noting that margins were better in the smaller-ticket business involving the insurance of helicopters and smaller planes than in the bigger aircraft.
Merry added that the group's combined loss from Hurricane Dean, January's European windstorms and the UK floods in late June and July came to between £4-5m - within its expectations.
Hardy has long been rumoured to be on the cusp of a takeover from bigger reinsurers, but Merry maintains that the group would be better as a standalone insurer.
Although she declined to comment on whether there had been any approaches for the group, she said that the "best defence was a high share price".
"The share price has begun to reflect the value of this business,' she said. 'We believe that the best way of creating shareholder value is to stay independent."
