Insurer Lancashire's profit slumps, appoints CFO for Cathedral

(Reuters) - Property and casualty insurer Lancashire Holdings Ltd (LRE.L) on Thursday reported a 48.5 percent slump in first-quarter pretax profit, and appointed Heather McKinlay as chief financial officer for its Cathedral arm.

Shares in the company, which last year announced the departure of Cathedral's CEO and CFO, fell as much as 5.2 percent in early trading on the London Stock Exchange.

Lancashire, which writes policies for heavy-duty assets such as oil rigs, ships and aircraft, said pretax profit fell to $26.5 million in the quarter ended March 31, from $51.5 million a year earlier.

The insurer's gross written premiums fell 13.5 percent to $230.8 million, notably in the energy and Lloyds' businesses.

In the energy sector, gross premiums written fell 15.8 percent while in the Lloyd's segment, gross premiums written decreased by 14.2 percent.

Analysts, however, remained positive on Lancashire and viewed Thursday's fall as an excellent buying opportunity.

"Lancashire is a prized asset in an ever-dwindling Lloyd's insurance sector and would make a terrific addition to a predator's portfolio," Shore Capital analyst Eamonn Flanagan said in a note.

Gross written premiums for property insurance rose 15.4 percent to $88.6 million.

Lancashire said it had a combined ratio of 72.1 percent in quarter, compared with 78 percent a year earlier.

The ratio is the sum of incurred losses and expenses divided by earned premiums. A ratio below 100 percent means an insurer earns more in premiums than it pays out in claims.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain and Aastha Agnihotri in Bengaluru; Editing by Sunil Nair)