Aspen reports full year loss for 2020, a year 'more challenging than many of us can remember'

Aspen Insurance Holdings managed to reduce the size of its annual loss in 2020 compared to the previous year, stressing the challenges presented by COVID as it continues to reduce its catastrophe exposure.

Aspen reported a net loss after tax of $40.1 million for the twelve months ended December 31, 2020, a significant improvement on the $241.7 million net loss recorded in 2019.

Gross written premiums across the group rose to $3.7 billion in 2020 from $3.44 billion in 2019. For the reinsurance business specifically, gross written premiums increased to $1.66 billion in 2020, from $1.49 billion in 2019, driven by growth in premiums written in casualty reinsurance, property catastrophe reinsurance and other property reinsurance lines.

Aspen’s combined ratio shrank a little to 107.3 percent in 2020, from 113.9 percent in 2019, though Mark Cloutier, Aspen’s group executive chairman and chief executive officer, noted that the operating combined ratio had improved significantly to 91.8 percent.

Cloutier admitted that COVID-19 had made 2020 a year that was “more challenging than many of us can remember, with both profound human and economic consequences.”

He said Aspen’s “underlying performance gives me great encouragement around the progress we are making as a business including successfully reducing our catastrophe exposure.”

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