Beazley moves upwards as premiums grow

The price of shares in FTSE 250 specialist insurer Beazley (LON:BEZ) has risen by 7.51% to 579.50p (as of 13:40 GMT) as gross written premiums climbed by 12% during the nine months ended 30th September. Management said that they expected claims from recent typhoons and hurricanes would be roughly $80 million net of reinsurance and reinstatements premiums.

CEO Andrew Horton commented: “We continue to see strong, double digit premium growth across our business as a whole, driven by organic growth and rate rises across many lines of business.

“We have continued to experience heightened claims activity with our exposure to catastrophes in Q3 estimated to be $80m net of reinsurance and reinstatement premium.

“We have been anticipating a more difficult claims environment in areas such as directors & officers, employment practice liability and healthcare liability in recent years. As such we have been adjusting our underwriting for several years in these areas and began opening at a higher reserve position at the start of 2018.

“Our investment team has delivered another strong performance in Q3, bringing our year to date net investment income to $215m or 4.0%”.