Everest swings to loss in Q3; CEO hails ‘outstanding’ top line growth

Everest Re Group swung to a loss during the third quarter of 2021, but its chief executive officer CEO praised the firm's “outstanding top line premium growth” across both insurance and reinsurance businesses, citing new business growth, strong renewal retention and a continuing favorable pricing environment.

Juan Andrade (pictured) stated that despite the high frequency and severity of the natural catastrophe activity in the quarter, the company “benefited from the de-risking of the cat portfolio and remains on track to achieve our total shareholder return objective”.

The Bermuda-based re/insurer produced a net loss of $73.5 million in Q3 2021, compared with a net profit of $243.1 million generated in the prior-year quarter.

The company's combined ratio further deteriorated to 112.2 percent in Q3 of this year, compared with 105.2 percent in Q3 of previous year.

However, Everest saw a 25 percent growth in its gross written premium year over year to $3.5 billion,  compared with $2.8 billion in Q3 2020. Its insurance segment contributed $1 billion to the GWP while the reinsurance segment grew its premium 19 percent year over year to $2.5 billion.

The re/insurer suffered a pre-tax underwriting loss of $323 million during the period, inclusive of pre-tax net catastrophe losses of $635 million. Reinsurance cat losses for the quarter totaled $555 million net of recoveries and reinstatement premiums, driven by Hurricane Ida and the Berndt flooding event in Europe.

Andrade highlighted that the company has made “significant progress toward the strategic plan objectives” and is focussed on executing the plan regardless of the external environment.

“We achieved outstanding top line premium growth across both of our insurance and reinsurance businesses, continued to improve the attritional profitability for our Insurance Division, remained focused on risk appetite discipline and the diversification of our business, demonstrated strong expense management, delivered excellent investment income results, opportunistically reduced our cost of capital, and returned capital to our shareholders,” he added.

Did you get value from this story?  Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox.