Insurer hails benign hurricane season
Insurance group Hiscox has said its 2007 results will beat its record results of last year.
In a trading statement, the group said benign hurrican season had contributed to its strong performance this year.
"Trading has been good with favourable rating, albeit becoming more competitive. After Hurricane Kyrill in January and UK floods in the summer, Mother Nature has since been kind to us and the hurricanes and typhoons have avoided the heavily insured areas of the world.
"The full year result should be better than last year's record."
The group said iot it had little exposure to sub-prime risk. "We have negligible exposure in our investments to sub-prime bonds. In our underwriting, we have a very modest and well reserved exposure to some small financial services companies in the US. We do not insure major financial institutions for such risks."
It concluded: "The world insurance market is highly competitive with continued downward pressure on rates, particularly on larger risks. Smaller risks, the core of our retail strategy, are seeing slightly less competition and we have gently increased rates in the UK household account."
Chairman Robert Hiscox said: "This downward part of the insurance cycle is what our strategy is designed to combat. We will continue to build the profitable stable retail accounts worldwide to counteract the necessary reduction in the catastrophe and big-ticket accounts."
