Lloyd’s of London swung to a pre-tax profit of US$13.51 billion in 2023, the commercial insurance market said on Thursday (Mar 28), boosted by strong underwriting and investment performance.

The insurance market, which has more than 50 member firms, suffered an £800 million (S$1.36 billion) loss in 2022.

Commercial insurers, who underwrite anything from oil rigs to professional footballers’ legs, have coped in recent years with a pandemic, wars, inflation and rising losses from natural catastrophes by excluding some business and raising prices.

“We’ll continue working with our market to deliver consistent profitable performance through disciplined underwriting,” chief executive John Neal said in a statement.

Lloyd’s said earlier this month that its underwriting profit more than doubled to £5.9 billion. Its investments returned £5.3 billion, helped by higher interest rates, compared with a £3.1 billion loss a year ago.

The collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge is likely to lead to a multi-billion dollar insurance loss, the chairperson of Lloyd’s said.

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It was too soon to put a figure on the total insurance loss, Bruce Carnegie-Brown told Reuters, but he said he would be “very surprised” if the event did not result in a multi-billion dollar loss, adding that “the tragedy has the capacity to become the largest single marine insurance loss ever”. REUTERS