Insurer Lloyd's of London swings to $13.5 billion profit in 2023

LONDON (Reuters) - Lloyd's of London swung to a pre-tax profit of 10.7 billion pounds ($13.51 billion) in 2023, the commercial insurance market said on Thursday, boosted by strong underwriting and investment performance.

The insurance market, which has more than 50 member firms, suffered an 800-million-pound loss in 2022.

Commercial insurers, who underwrite anything from oil rigs to professional footballers' legs, have coped in recent years with a pandemic, wars, inflation and rising losses from natural catastrophes by excluding some business and raising prices.

"We’ll continue working with our market to deliver consistent profitable performance through disciplined underwriting," Chief Executive John Neal said in a statement.

Lloyd's said earlier this month that its underwriting profit more than doubled to 5.9 billion pounds. Its investments returned 5.3 billion pounds, helped by higher interest rates, compared with a 3.1 billion loss a year ago.

($1 = 0.7922 pounds)

(Reporting by Carolyn Cohn; Editing by Bernadette Baum)