Old Republic 3Q Income Down 9%
NU Online News Service, Oct. 28, 12:40 p.m. EDT?Old Republic International Corp. reported slightly lower net earnings for the third quarter and first nine months of 2004, reflecting lackluster performances of its mortgage guaranty and title insurance operations.[@@]
The Chicago-based company's net income in this year's third quarter totaled $109.1 million, down nine percent from $119.9 million posted during the year-ago quarter.
Old Republic's property-casualty insurance business registered pretax operating income of $87.3 million for the third quarter, higher than the $64.8 million earned during the same period of 2003.
Net premium revenues for property-casualty in the third quarter rose by 17.4 percent to $421.3 million, up from $359 million one year ago.
The composite underwriting ratio for this year's third quarter was 89.7, improving from 92.9 posted during the same quarter one year ago. Old Republic said its underwriting results in the latest quarter continued to benefit from lower claims ratios, and from firm production and administrative expense control.
However, Old Republic's mortgage guaranty pretax operating income dropped 22.2 percent to $53.7 million in this year's third quarter, when compared to the $69.1 million posted in the same quarter of last year. And premium and fee revenues for the title insurance unit totaled $256.9 million in the third quarter, down 16.7 percent from $308.4 million a year ago.
Realized investment gains for the third quarter were $2.2 million, down slightly from $4.5 million during the year-ago period.
Old Republic International Corporation is an insurance holding company whose subsidiary units market, underwrite and provide risk management services for a wide variety of coverage primarily in the property-casualty, mortgage guaranty, and title insurance fields. Old Republic has assets of nearly $10.4 billion and capitalization of $3.9 billion.
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