London-based insurer Beazley Group, plc, reported its U.S. business grew 150 percent in the first three months of this year and it foresees minimal professional liability exposure resulting from fallout from the subprime mortgage default crisis.
Beazley reported its U.S. gross written premium underwriting business increased $42.8 million to $71.4 million on a comparative basis. Overall, the company reported a 2 percent decrease of ?4 million ($7.9 million) to ?201 million ($398 million) in gross written premium.
The company said it is targeting $250 million of premium from its U.S. operations for the whole of 2008, compared to $175 million in 2007.
The company did not report net income for the quarter.
Beazley said it has limited appetite for professional liability risks within the financial institution sector. It provides directors and officers insurance to only four financial services entities hit with subprime-related lawsuits and other types of coverage to seven others.
The insurer said it expects its exposure to remain within its reserves, "and we do not anticipate a change to our reserving philosophy."
Premiums for renewals fell 6 percent across all lines in the first quarter of 2008, the insurer said. The most severe decreases are taking place in the company's commercial property business with declines of 15 percent. Its largest business, specialty lines, experienced decreases of 7 percent.
"We remain positive about the quality of the business we are seeing and at this stage have no reason to believe the market decreases will affect our ability to deliver solid results," Beazley said.
The carrier said cash and investments rose ?54 million ($107 million) from the end of 2007 to ?1.5 billion ($2.97 billion) at the end of the first quarter.
Beazley Group Chief Executive Andrew Beazley said in a statement that the first quarter has developed as expected. In the soft market, he continued, "the diversity of our business and the experience of our underwriters should continue to serve us well."
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