Australian insurer QBE has announced a 2023 full-year statutory net profit after tax of $1.36 billion, up substantially compared with the $587 million recorded in 2022.
At the same time, gross written premiums for the full year grew 10% from 2022 to $21.7 billion, while net insurance revenue reached $16.6 billion, up from $15.1 billion in 2022.
QBE’s net cost of catastrophe claims for 2023 was $1.1 billion, or 6.6% of net insurance revenue, which was within its allowance, and reduced from 7% in 2022.
According to the firm, the cost of catastrophes was driven by significant secondary peril activity across all divisions.
QBE also revealed that its combined operating ratio improved to 95.2% from 95.9% in 2022, which included a 0.6% impact from the upfront cost of a $1.9 billion reserve transaction.
The firm noted that this result was supported by attractive premium rate increases which remain at or above inflation for most lines.
Total investment income for 2023 was $1.37 billion, equating to a return of 4.7%. This marked an improvement from 2022’s $570 million or 2.0%, with higher interest rates supporting fixed-income returns, which also included a favourable mark to market impact from tighter credit spreads.
QBE Group CEO, Andrew Horton, commented, “Over the last two years, QBE has been focused on delivering greater resilience and consistency. I see meaningful progress across the business, and I am confident that we can drive further progress against our strategic priorities in 2024.
“Our strategy to improve performance in North America remains a key focus for the Board and management, and we are tasked to build a business which delivers performance that is consistent with our Group targets. We have renewed our focus on building and strengthening relationships with our major trading partners, and are confident we can successfully manage our priorities for the division.”
Horton continued, “We want to accelerate QBE’s data-centric capabilities and expand our ability to support customer resilience through new technologies, such as artificial intelligence. We will continue to leverage technology to deliver better outcomes for customers through our Modernisation strategic priority and QBE Ventures initiatives.
“Our six strategic priorities remain consistent, and we are focused on having the right capabilities, people and technology to deliver our strategy, drive competitive advantage and support our customers. We are motivated to deliver on our plan, better leverage our unique global platform and ultimately realise our potential.”
