Munich Re said it made a loss of €434m during 2003, but that it had “drawn a line under three difficult years impacted by the bear market on the stock exchanges”.
In its full year results for 2003, the group said its underwriting profit had increased to €2bn, with gross premium income of €40.4bn, up from €40.0bn in 2002.
It said its combined ratios had improved sharply, with the ratio for reinsurance falling to 96.7% and the ratio for primary insurance falling to 96.4%.
The company said in a statement: “The Munich Re Group has now absorbed the after-effects of the extremely weak stock markets that prevailed until last March. Its tax expenditure of €1.8bn had a disproportionate impact on the result, given the group's pre-tax earnings of €1.3bn.
“In addition, expenses were booked for adjustments of goodwill in the case of the group's Italian primary insurance operations, for the strengthening of reserves in the US, and for the writedowns and adjustments of goodwill for HypoVereinsbank as a Munich Re associated enterprise”
Munich Re's supervisory board has recommended a dividend of €1.25 per share.
