Disasters push Goshawk to pounds 73m loss

The insurance syndicate that covered the Columbia space shuttle and the collapsed Accident Group lost pounds 73m last year as a result of the disasters.

Lloyd’s of London insurance syndicate 102 pushed its owner, Goshawk Insurance Holdings, into a pounds 58m loss for the year – compared to a pounds 10m profit the year before -the firm announced yesterday.

The results came one working day late after the auditors held up publication for technical reasons involving the spinning out of the syndicate.

The problems with Goshawk’s Lloyd’s syndicate 102 led to a management clearout last year, including chief executive Chris Fagan. In November, Lloyd’s asked Goshawk to shut down in Britain owing to the large losses and uncertainty of funding.

The insurer was hit by covering the crashed Columbia space shuttle in February last year and The Accident Group, which collapsed amid scandal last May.

Syndicate 102 was put into runoff last year and Goshawk is concentrating on its Bermuda subsidiary and the business of writing property and marine catastrophe insurance.

This business made an operating profit of pounds 22m compared with pounds 23m the previous year, the company said yesterday. The amount of premiums it wrote dipped 11% to pounds 112m.

In contrast Chaucer Holdings, a specialist Lloyd’s in surer, announced booming results due to high premiums for its marine, aviation and motor insurance compared with a small number of claims.

Since September 11 2001 the price of many kinds of insurance has increased, so firms that avoided the few big catastrophes have been highly profitable. Chaucer made small losses from the Fabian and Isabel hurricanes and typhoon Maemi. The group reported profit before tax of pounds 36m against pounds 3m the year before.