Combined ratio up 3.3 points, premiums up 1.65% for Everest Re

Everest Re Group Ltd., whose products include reinsurance worldwide and liability coverage in Canada for sports and leisure firms, reported Monday a 1.65% increase in third-quarter premiums earned while its combined ratio deteriorated 3.3 points.

Hamilton, Bermuda-based Everest Re released its financial results for the three months ending Sept. 30, after the close of trading Oct. 26.

The insurer recorded $1.413 billion in premiums earned in the most recent quarter, up 1.65% from $1.39 billion in Q3 2014. All figures are in United States dollars.

“The combined ratio for the quarter was 89.0% compared to 85.7% in the third quarter of 2014,” Everest Re stated in a release. The company stated it recorded, in Q3, “losses of $40 million for the Chile earthquake and $60 million for the explosion in the port of Tianjin, China.” An earthquake measuring 8.3 on the Richter scale struck Chile Sept. 16, while on Aug. 12, explosions originating from a Tianjin, China warehouse containing sodium cyanide killed more than 170 and damaged warehouses, vehicles and shipping containers.

In the latest quarter, Everest Re reported total claims and expenses of $1.274 billion, up 4.9% from $1.214 billion in Q3 2014. Everest Re was the name adopted, in 1996, by Prudential Re, a year after Prudential sold off its reinsurance holdings in a public offering of stock.

Everest Re writes primary insurance and reinsurance in the U.S. and is “authorized to conduct reinsurance business in Canada, Singapore and Brazil,” the firm stated in an earlier filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Subsidiaries include Heartland Crop Insurance Inc. and Toronto-based Everest Insurance Company of Canada, whose target markets include sports and leisure companies, construction, manufacturing and wholesale. Coverages in Canada include environmental, directors’ and officer’ liability, professional liability and employment practices liability, among others.

Everest Re also writes facultative and treaty reinsurance in Canada.

Worldwide, Everest Re reported net income of $107.6 million in Q3 2015, down 64.3% from $301.3 million during the same period in 2014.

Total net realized capital losses were $160 million in the most recent quarter, up from $9.448 million in Q3 2014.

Everest Re was ranked 10th, by A.M. Best Company Inc., on its list of the top 50 global reinsurance groups. Those groups were ranked by gross reinsurance premiums written, in life and non-life, in 2014. The list was published in a segment review on global reinsurance released Sept. 2 by A.M. Best, an Oldwick, N.J.-based ratings firm. When ranked by non-life GWP reinsurance premiums only, Everest Re ranked seventh, behind Munich Re, Swiss Re, the Lloyd’s market, Berkshire Hathaway, Hannover Re and SCOR.

PartnerRe Ltd., which also reported its Q3 financials Monday, ranked ahead of Everest Re when measured by total 2014 life and non-life GWP, but behind Everest Re in non-life.