GENERALI DOWN IN FIRST HALF, SEES H2 AS “CHALLENGING”

Italian insurer Generali has posted a first-half net gain of €504m ($716.2m) down from €1.46bn in the same period last year. Gross written premiums were €34.7bn, down 1.5%. Non-life premiums were €11.6bn, a year on year decline of 0.9%. A 3.7% decline in the home market and a 1.1% fall in Germany was partially offset by a 2.6% increase in premiums in France. The L’Aquila earthquake and storms in Italy, Spain and France cost about €200m. The combined ratio was 97.9%, up from 94.6% in the same period last year. The company said that it expected the remainder of the year to be “challenging”. The insurer said that it was thinking of signing distribution agreements with smaller Italian banks, selling its products via local lenders. Generali no longer has a bancassurance deal in Italy after the abandonment of its joint venture with leading local retail bank Intesa Sanpaolo. Commenting on the results this monring, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analyst Ralph Hebgen said that “technical results were comfortably improving” and that Generali was “able to write new business at resilient profit margins”. However, the underlying loss ratio on the Italian home market “remains unsatisfactory”, Mr Hebgen said. Meanwhile, Generali’s 50% stake in Intesa Vita is worth about €710m ($1bn) according to a report in Italian newspaper Il Messagero last week. The sum was reached by the adviser to Generali and Intesa Sanpaolo, the joint owners of the life assurer. Finally, Fausto Marchionni, CEO of Italian insurer Fondiaria-SAI, has said that Italian insurers will post relatively weak results for the first half of this year and will not recover before 2010, according to an Il Sole 24 Ore report. Mr Marchionni said that “I think the bottom has been reached and that 2010 will see a recovery, but at the same time I imagine that the first half results coming shortly will ... not bring good news”. He added that Fondiaria-SAI would be focusing on its capital and keeping its solvency margin above 130%.