A year earlier, there had been a loss of just over a billion.
The leap back into the profit zone has become apparent: the world’s second largest reinsurer was able to post a profit of 333 million dollars for the first quarter.
Swiss Re rose in property reinsurance, where the key figure, the combined ratio fell by a good 21 percentage points to 94.4 percent. And also in the individual insurance line of Corporate Solutions, the combined ratio fell below 100 percent at 92.7 percent. An insurer earns money below this threshold.
Life reinsurance is still struggling with the consequences of the corona crisis. Which weigh on high death rates in some markets. In the life division, Swiss Re shows a loss of 119 million dollars after a small plus of 74 million last year.
Group boss Christian Mumenthaler in the announcement shows that he is satisfied with the performance achieved in the first half of the year. With a return on investment of 3.2 percent, Swiss Re also benefited from the positive development in the financial markets and there was generally significantly less pandemic damage. The pandemic is still uncertain, warns Mumenthaler. “However, we are confident that all of our businesses are well positioned to continue to deliver strong performance.”
It is unclear how much the July flood disasters in Europe will burden the bill. At the same time, hurricanes are to be expected until late autumn, which could cause destruction in the east of the USA and trigger payments.