Generali Posts $402.7 Q3 Loss

While it wasn’t in the same league with Allianz, Italy’s Generali posted a 401 million Euro ($402.7 million) loss in the third quarter, compared to a 171 million Euro ($171.7 million) profit in the same period last year.

Most of the losses were attributable to the now familiar slump in equity values. Generali was forced to write down the value of its portfolio by 637 million Euros ($639.8 million) during the period. That was a lot less than the 1.55 billion Euros ($1.557 billion) it wrote down in the second quarter. That loss was a contributing factor in the departure of Gianfranco Gutty, Generali’s chairman. Although most comentators consider his differences with Mediobanca, which owns a 13.6 percent stake in Generali, to have been the main reason.

Analysts were generally surprised by the results, as the company wrote down considerably less than had been expected given the precipitate sell off in the global stock markets in the July-September quarter.

As has been the case with many other insurers, Generali’s operations have benefited from rate increases and more demand. It posted a 6.1 percent increase in gross premiums written for the first 9 months of the year to 34 billion Euros ($34.15 billion). P/C gross premiums rose 6.2 percent for the period to 13.5 billion Euros ($13.56 billion).