QBE Insurance expects a 20% jump in net earned premium to $5.5 billion by the end of the year, a figure that has reassured shareholders the company is regaining its strength and performing in tune with management forecasts.

CEO Frank O’Halloran told shareholders the results are “very encouraging” with key ratios and premium growth on target with 2002 projections.

Mr O’Halloran has also been quick to defend the industry’s slightly battered post-HIH image. In an interview on Channel Nine’s Business Sunday, he said QBE and others in the industry should not be blamed for the shortcomings of HIH.

“We’re not like HIH or FAI,” he said. “We have always taken our reserving for claims very seriously. We always have said that we maintain our reserves at an excess of 85% degree of adequacy, we don’t have reinsurance arrangements of the nature of that of FAI and HIH. We’ve made statements that we don’t enter into reinsurance arrangements that reserve cost to a subsequent period.”

“We’ve got 160-170 insurance companies in Australia and unfortunately one or two have created a bad name for the other 158 or 168,” he said. “I think you have got to look at it in perspective, that the majority of companies in this marketplace have good corporate governance and good practices.”