Insurer Hartford Financial Services Group's third-quarteroperating profit beat analysts' average estimate as pricing rose 8percent in its P&C casualty commercial business.
|Hartford's core earnings from its P&C commercial businessrose about 9 percent to $176 million. Underwriting gains more thandoubled to $30 million.
|On an operating basis, the insurer earned $1.03 per share.Analysts on average had expected 83 cents, according to ThomsonReuters I/B/E/S.
|Hartford's P&C combined ratio, the percentage of premiumrevenue that insurers pay out as claims, improved to 92.8 percentfrom 96.3 percent last year.
|Earned premium from its P&C business, however, fell lessthan 1 percent to $2.49 billion.
|Net income rose to $293 million from $13 million a year earlier,when Hartford's sale of its Individual Life business led to anafter-tax net loss of $388 million, the company said.
|Hartford has been shedding its annuities business, retirementplans business and life insurance operations to focus on the morestable P&C business.
|Reuters reported earlier this month that private equity firmslike J.C. Flower & Co and Apollo Global Management LLC areamong a handful of companies expected to bid for the insurer'sJapanese annuity business.
|Hartford, based in the Connecticut city of the same name, is the11th-largest P&C insurer in the country with a market share ofabout 2 percent, according to the National Association of InsuranceCommissioners, a multi-state insurance regulatory body.
|Shares of Hartford, which has a market value of more than $15billion, closed at $33.90 on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.They were up more than 1 percent after the bell.
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