Swiss Re announced a $2.4 billion addition to its property and casualty reinsurance (P&C Re) reserves for prior-year US liability exposures in Q3 2024, following a comprehensive review.
This move, aligned with Swiss Re’s strategy to maintain reserves at the upper end of its best-estimate range, brought total reserve additions to $3.1 billion for the first nine months of the year. These additions were partially offset by releases in other business lines, resulting in a net reserve increase of $2.0 billion in P&C Re for the third quarter.
Group CEO Andreas Berger stated that bolstering the company's resilience has been a core management objective.
“We conducted a comprehensive review of our P&C reserves, considering the latest industry data and legal trends. With the decisive actions in the third quarter, we have reached our goal of positioning reserves at the higher end of the best-estimate range. Importantly, we have addressed reserve developments in our entire US liability portfolio, including all prior underwriting years,” he said.
Swiss Re estimates a net income of approximately $0.1 billion for Q3 2024 and about $2.2 billion for the first nine months of the year. Beyond US liability reserving, the quarter included strong underlying results from underwriting and investment across all business units.
The company confirmed that Life & Health Re (L&H Re) and Corporate Solutions remain on target to achieve their 2024 objectives of approximately $1.5 billion in net income and a combined ratio below 93%.
However, P&C Re is expected to fall short of its combined ratio target of under 87% for 2024, given the Q3 reserving actions. Assuming normal loss patterns, Swiss Re anticipates a total group net income exceeding $3 billion for the full year.
Swiss Re announced that it will release its financial results for the first nine months of 2024 on Nov. 14.
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