Chubb boosts P&C premium ca 13% Q1, holds margins amid retail recovery
Insurance giant Chubb grew its top line by over 13% in P&C insurance in Q1 2024, led by foreign market growth ahead of the US gain, while holding margins largely steady at a combined ratio of neighbourhood 86%.
“We began the year with a simply excellent quarter,” Evan Greenberg, chairman and CEO, commented. “We produced double-digit premium revenue growth from across the globe with strong results in our commercial and consumer P&C and Asia life businesses.”
Global P&C net premiums written, ex-agriculture, rose 13.3%, with commercial insurance up 11.1% and consumer insurance up 19.3%.
North American commercial P&C grew 9.4% in NPW with 11.9% growth in major accounts and E&S doubling the rate of growth in the mid and small-cap market.
Growth in the US commercial segment was not a singular story: P&C lines rose 13.0% against a 7.6% decline for still-troubled financial lines. The overall growth rate was boosted to the tune of 1.4 points by a major one-off transaction but hit by previously flagged underwriting actions in primary and excess casualty among major accounts, management said. Chubb claimed “record” new business of above $1.2 billion and “strong” policy count renewal retention of 84.7%.
CEO Greenberg cited a “quite favourable” North American underwriting environment with the notable exception of financial lines. Prices are exceeding steady loss cost trend, he said.
“We saw the best rates and pricing overall that we have seen in the last four to five quarters,” Greenberg said. “It was also one of the best quarters for large-account casualty rates and pricing."
Outside of the US, Q1 P&C net premiums written rose by a faster 17.5%, with growth of 27.1% in consumer insurance and 12.2% in commercial; Asia, Latin America, and Europe were up 34.7%, 17.5%, and 8.6%, respectively.
Margins held closely to the prior year period reading across the major segments with the consolidated P&C combined ratio down 0.3 pints to 86.0%.
Attritional losses were up fractionally and offset by reduced cats: the current accident year combined ratio excluding nat cat was up 0.4 points to 83.7%. Pre-tax cat losses of $435 million came to 4.4 ratio points, down from the 5.1 point measure on the prior year's $458 million tally.
Overall margin stability came as North American personal insurance showed notable improvement of 7.3 ratio points, considerably less visible in the current accident year ex-cat reading, all masking light slippage in margins North American commercial.
For the P&L, those margins led to a 15.4% increase in P&C underwriting income to $1.4 billion.
Life insurance, a hugely expanded portion of the game after the Cigna Asia acquisition, grew its segment income by 9.8% or 12.7% in constant dollars on a 26.3% increase (29.7% constant FX) in net written premium.
Investment income heaped some more onto the Q1 P&L with a roughly 1/4 increase from the prior year period and Chubb's gain on the Bermuda tax asst added a bit more still.
By the bottom line, net income of $2.14 billion had risen 13.3% against the prior year measure, putting annualized return on equity (ROE) to 14.3%.
Did you get value from this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox.
