Munich Re reports 924 million euro net income in first quarter

Munich Re has reported a profit of 924 million euros for the first quarter of the year, down from 970 million euros in the same period of 2013, but keeping it on track for its annual profit target.

“Our operating earnings are robust,” CFO Jörg Schneider said in a statement on the first quarter earnings. “In addition, we were largely spared major losses. Despite negative currency effects, we almost matched the outstanding result of the first quarter last year. After this good start, we are optimistic of achieving our profit target of 3 billion euros for the year.”

For the first three months of the year, the reinsurer reported an operating result of 1.3 billion euros, just below the 1.37 billion euros it saw for Q1 last year.

Gross premiums written for the quarter decreased 2.7% to 12.9 billion euros (13.3 billion euros in 2013). If exchange rates had remained the same, premium volume would have risen by 1.4% year over year, the company said.

In primary insurance, the company had an operating result for the first three months of 282 million euros, up from 205 million euros in the prior year quarter,  while the consolidated result totalled 154 million euros, also up from 117 million euros in Q1 of 2013.

For its reinsurance business, the operating result totaled 991 million euros (1.12 billion euros in Q1 of 2013). Overall, reinsurance accounted for about 750 million euros of the group’s consolidated result, versus 828 million euros for the same period last year.

Quarterly gross premiums written for that segment were down 1.6% year over year, to 6.9 billion euros. For life reinsurance, gross premiums written fell 3.6% to 2.477 billion euros (2.569 billion in Q1 of 2013), while premiums in property and casualty reinsurance fell by 0.4% overall to 4.381 billion euros ( from 4.398 billion the prior year quarter).

The combined ratio in P&C reinsurance in the first quarter was 86.9% (85.7% in the first quarter of 2013).

Natural catastrophe losses were roughly 36 million euros for the quarter (24 million euros for Q1 of 2013) and man-made major losses were 3.3 million, down from 82 million euros in the prior year quarter.

“As loss reserves remain significantly above the level of losses reported, there were moderate reserve releases of close to 140 million euros. This represents some 3.5 percentage points of the combined ratio,” Munich Re said.