QBE has announced its impressive financial results for the full year 2023, revealing a substantial increase in its statutory net profit after tax to US$1.36 billion, compared with $587 million recorded in 2022.
The company’s gross written premiums for the full year experienced a notable growth of 10% from 2022, reaching $21.7 billion. Additionally, net insurance revenue surged to $16.6 billion, up from $15.1 billion in 2022.
QBE’s net cost of catastrophe claims for 2023 totaled $1.1 billion, representing 6.6% of net insurance revenue, which was within its allowance and reduced from 7% in 2022. The cost of catastrophes was attributed to significant secondary peril activity across all divisions.
The firm also disclosed that its combined operating ratio improved to 95.2% from 95.9% in 2022, with a 0.6% impact from the upfront cost of a $1.9 billion reserve transaction. This improvement was supported by attractive premium rate increases, which remained at or above inflation for most lines of business.
Total investment income for 2023 amounted to $1.37 billion, representing a return of 4.7%. This marked a notable improvement from 2022’s $570 million or 2.0%. Higher interest rates supported fixed-income returns, which also included a favorable mark-to-market impact from tighter credit spreads.
Speaking about the results, QBE Group CEO, Andrew Horton, said: “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.”
He 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.
Horton added: “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.”
