RSA Insurance Q1 gross premiums up 1%

First quarter gross written premiums at RSA Insurance grew by 1% at constant currency rates to £2.09bn in the first quarter, the company said on Thursday.

Net written premiums were up 2% to of £1.5bn on an underlying basis.

At a headline level, reinsurance costs for the triennial GVC renewal, a reduction in retention levels for certain programmes and rate inflation in reinsurance areas such as UK motor dampened net written premiums by £197m, RSA said.

Year-on-year pre-tax profit for the period was higher, although the company did not reveal any figures.

However, on an underlying basis profit was lower due to elevated winter weather costs being not fully offset by other improvements.

The Scandinavian unit saw a 6% increase in underlying premiums in the Swedish personal lines business.

Chief executive Stephen Hester said he was “happy with RSA's progress at this early stage of the year”.

“The underlying business is tracking consistent with our ambitions overall, whilst winter weather volatility is a normal part of our business. Headline profits are also strongly up, reflecting the absence (as planned) of restructuring costs."

Group weather costs were 5.1% of net earned premiums, 3.1 points higher than the same period of 2017 and 1.9 points higher than the five year average of 3.2%, with all regions impacted, RSA said.

The large loss ratio improved to 9.7%, trending closer to the five year average of 9.0%, it added.