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(Alliance News) - Beazley PLC on Wednesday revealed it is on track to meet its guidance for 2024 following strong growth in its written premiums.
In the first nine months of the year, the London-based specialist insurance underwriter said its insurance written premiums rose 6.9% on-year to USD4.63 billion from USD4.33 billion.
Net insurance written premiums performed similarly, up 7.4% to USD3.79 billion from USD3.53 billion the previous year.
Beazley shares are up 2.4% at 788.50 pence each on Wednesday morning in London.
By division, Property Risks realised the largest improvement, maintaining its position as one of the significant growth drivers this year as insurance written premiums rose 24% to USD1.40 billion from USD1.13 billion.
The firm said the division performed inline with its expectations and benefitted from the ongoing flow of business into the excess and surplus market.
MAP Risks, Beazley's division combining underwriting for marine, political, accident, contingency and portfolio risks performed the worst, down 4.6% to USD719 million from USD754 million in 2023, with Beazley owing this year-on-year reduction to a higher proportion of MAP Risks being supported by third party capital providers.
This follows on from a restructuring of Beazley's platforms at the start of 2024. However, it noted that the division continues to grow overall on a total managed basis.
The FTSE100-listed firm reiterated its combined ratio guidance for the year at around 80%.
It's investment portfolio also performed well throughout the period as it returned USD513 million, or 4.7%, driven by favourable market conditions and increased exposure to equities and high yield credit.
Beazley Chief Executive Adrian Cox said: "I am extremely proud of how our business has navigated the volatile claims environment we have seen so far this year.
"Our commitment to disciplined underwriting and our risk selection expertise mean that, despite an active hurricane season and a global cyber event, we expect to deliver an undiscounted combined ratio of around 80% for the full year, consistent with our guidance at our interim results in August."
By Christopher Ward, Alliance News reporter
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