Lloyd's puts tsunami losses at £100m

THE Lloyd's of London insurance market has reported that its net loss arising from the Asian tsunami catastrophe will be around £100m. It said that 'a significant proportion of these losses' will have been factored into the market's expected losses due to catastrophes.

Llloyd's chairman Lord Levene had said last week that claims from the tsunami would probably cost Lloyd's less than $500m (£266m).

Just over a week before the disaster struck south Asia, killing almost 300,000 people, Lloyd's announced its insurance market would shrink this year for the first time since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US in 2001.

Lloyd's chief executive Nick Prettejohn said then that the market's underwriting capacity - fall by 9% to £13.7bn in 2005. The decrease reflected the City's feeling that the insurance cycle was beginning to soften.

But the fall was less than predicted before the devastating hurricane season in the US, which cost the industry almost $18bn (£9.3bn), and the estimate may now be reduced again.