Royal & SunAlliance (R&SA) reported a loss of £65m on ordinary activities for the six months ended 30 June 2004.
Despite the loss, the group said the first half of the year had yielded good results, with a strong performance from its ongoing operations.
R&SA reported net written premiums of £2.5bn for its general business, down from the £3.7bn reported for the first half of 2003, and net written premiums of £553m for its life business, down from the £757m reported for the same period in the previous year.
Group operating profit increased by more than 60% from £119m in the first half of 2003, to £192m.
R&SA said the group combined operating ratio was 99.7%, a slight rise on the 99.3% recorded for the previous year.
The combined ratio for ongoing business was 93.6% said the company.
Chief executive Andy Haste said: “We've made strong progress on executing our strategy during the half while producing another set of good results from our ongoing businesses.
“With the successful sale of UK and Scandinavian Life we will have completed our long term goal of exiting life business to focus on general insurance.”
The insurer is raising the interim dividend to 1.65 pence a share from last year's payout of 1.62 pence.
