Liberty Mutual Insurance marks turnaround in Q1 results

Liberty Mutual Insurance marks turnaround in Q1 results | Insurance Business Canada

Insurance News

Liberty Mutual Insurance marks turnaround in Q1 results

President lifts the lid on quarterly earnings

Insurance News

By
Terry Gangcuangco

Liberty Mutual Insurance (formally Liberty Mutual Holding Company and its subsidiaries, or LMHC collectively) has turned things around in the first quarter of 2024.

Here’s how the insurance group performed in the three months ended March 31:

Metric

Q1 2024

Q1 2023

Revenues

US$12.475 billion

US$11.928 billion

Pre-tax operating income (loss)

US$1.267 billion

US$(169 million)

Pre-tax income (loss)

US$1.148 billion

US$(232 million)

Consolidated net income (loss) from continuing operations

US$878 million

US$(182 million)

Consolidated net income (loss)

US$1.541 billion

US$(67 million)

Net income (loss) attributable to LMHC

US$1.535 billion

US$(74 million)

Lifting the lid on Liberty Mutual’s financial results, president and chief executive Tim Sweeney (pictured) noted: “For the first quarter, we reported net income attributable to LMHC of US$1.5 billion driven by strong core underwriting results and a US$663 million after-tax benefit from the gain on the sale of our GRM West Operations.

“Underwriting results continue to improve, with a 2.8 point improvement in the underlying loss ratio to 62.1% for the first quarter driven by rate execution and other underwriting actions. Catastrophe losses were in line with expectations for the quarter and improved 2.3 points from the prior year. In total, the loss ratio improved 5.9 points to 69.5%.

“Our US Retail Markets segment saw 5.2 points of improvement in the underlying loss ratio compared to the prior year driven by targeted rate actions continuing to earn in and favourable frequency trends. Despite higher current year large loss activity, Global Risk Solutions total combined ratio improved 3.9 points from the prior year to 94.2%.

“Our ongoing expense management program drove a 2.5 point reduction in the consolidated expense ratio to 26.3%. Overall, it was a strong quarter, and we are pleased with the solid progress we continue to make on profit improvement as we march towards our 95% combined ratio target in 2025.”

Liberty Mutual’s total combined ratio in Q1 was 95.8%, an improvement from last year’s 104.2%.

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