Brought to you by:

Investment returns save Liberty result

Strong investment returns lifted Liberty Mutual’s second-quarter profit by $US111 million ($139.74 million) to $US126 million ($158.6 million), making up for a combined operating ratio that deteriorated by 1.3 points to 102.7%.

Net investment income improved to $US1.49 billion ($1.87 billion) from $US1.28 billion ($1.61 billion) in the corresponding period last year.

Net written premium improved 9.9% to $US9.91 billion ($12.47 billion). This includes the impact of the Ironshore acquisition, which was completed in May for about $US3 billion ($3.77 billion).

The purchase was funded with about $US1.1billion ($1.38 billion) of short-term debt, to be repaid in the third quarter with cash from operations.

The Ironshore acquisition and integration costs in the second quarter totalled $US26 million ($32.73 million).

Chairman and CEO David Long says the results are “certainly below where we’d like to be”.

He says underwriting results were hit by current-year “auto deterioration”, higher non-catastrophe and weather-related losses in homeowners’ and commercial property, and unfavourable prior-year development.

“Severe weather, particularly in central US, added close to $US700 million ($881.23 million) of catastrophe losses, lower than last year but still sizeable compared [with] normalised expectations,” Mr Long said.