Hiscox reported a pre-tax profit of £141.4m ($231.4m) in the first half of 2009, up 29.5% from £109.2m in the same period last year.
Financial highlights :
- Record interim pre-tax profit up by 29.5% to £141.4m (2008: £109.2m)
- Gross written premiums increased 41.7% to £906.0m (2008: £639.4m)
- Earnings per share up 53.0% to 33.2p (2008: 21.7p)
- Interim dividend increased by 5.9% to 4.5p (2008: 4.25p) in line with the Group’s progressive dividend policy
- Improved combined ratio before monetary FX of 79.5% (2008: 81.0%)
- Strong annualised return on investments of 7.0% (2008: 1.6%)
- Return on equity 27.5% (2008: 21.8%)
*excludes foreign exchange losses arising on monetary items of £42.8m (2008 : £9.6m profit) and includes an uplift of £59.5m to adjust for the impact of the non retranslation of non-monetary items (2008 : £15.3m), as described in note 19.
Operational highlights
- All three divisions: Hiscox Global Markets, Hiscox International and Hiscox UK and Europe saw increases in GWP of 41%, 72% and 24%, respectively
- Management strengthened to support profitable growth across all geographies
- Experienced Hiscox USA team set for steady growth
Robert Hiscox, Chairman, Hiscox Ltd, commented:
”This is a great result considering it is after significant accounting losses from foreign exchange differences during the period. I am writing this in Bermuda as the island battens down the hatches with the onset of Hurricane Bill, but our catastrophe account is well able to withstand a normal hurricane season. Good underwriting and investing has helped to keep our long term strategy firmly in place, which is to continue to build a first class, balanced, international insurance business to the benefit of our customers, shareholders and staff.”
