Annual Report • Dec 31, 2011
Annual Report
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In insurance, as in fencing, good balance is essential. In 2011, the worst year on record for insured natural catastrophes, Beazley kept its balance, sustained by a well diversified business portfolio, strong broker relationships, and an entrepreneurial spirit that has attracted talented individuals to the company for more than 25 years.
Cover illustration: The dramatic fencing exchange shown on the front cover of this report is a drawing by artist Geoff Appleton based on an earlier drawing by Jenny Osbaldeston. That in turn was based on a photograph taken by Graham Morrison during the final of the 1991 Martini International épée tournament in London between Cuomo of Italy, making the flèche attack, and Sandegren of Sweden.
46 Corporate and social responsibility
6 26 years of profitable growth
For a condensed view of this annual report please read the next 8 pages.
Operating since 1986, we are market leaders in many of our chosen lines of business, which include:
Beazley plc is the parent company of our global specialist insurance businesses with operations in the UK, US, France, Norway, Germany, Ireland, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia. Beazley is a proud participant in the Lloyd's market, the largest and oldest insurance market in the world. Through the Lloyd's broker network and the market's trading licences, we are able to access a wide range of insurance and reinsurance business from around the world. Many of the lines of business we underwrite, such as marine and energy, political risks and contingency, were pioneered at Lloyd's.
Beazley manages five Lloyd's syndicates: syndicates 2623 and 623 underwrite a broad range of insurance and reinsurance business worldwide; syndicate 3623 focuses on personal accident and sport insurance along with providing reinsurance to Beazley Insurance Company Inc. in the US; 3622 is a dedicated life syndicate; and 6107, the special purpose syndicate, writes reinsurance business.
We also underwrite business directly in the US admitted market through Beazley Insurance Company, Inc., an admitted carrier licenced to write in all 50 states.
Beazley's vision is to become, and be recognised as, the highest performing specialist insurer.
We measure our progress towards achieving our vision by a variety of financial metrics, laid out on pages 4 and 5 of this report. But these metrics are underpinned by a business model that has stood the test of time and an environment that makes working at Beazley challenging and enjoyable. Combined with our focus on talent management, this has enabled Beazley to attract and retain people who rank among the best insurance professionals in the world.
The components of our business model are described in detail elsewhere in this report. To summarise:
Diversified business: For our shareholders, Beazley aims to deliver sector leading returns on equity with relatively low volatility. The key to this performance over time is the balance of Beazley's portfolio across specialist classes driven by different cycles. This enables us to target an average combined ratio of 90% with low volatility and to underwrite more premium and have more invested assets per dollar of capital than our peers.
Entrepreneurial spirit: Our open, collegial and collaborative culture means our clients and brokers interact with entrepreneurial underwriters who give straight answers and make decisions quickly.
Strong partnerships: Strong broker relationships are the lifeblood of our business. In the past two years, Dan Jones and his broker relations team have focused on deepening our relationships with brokers around the world. For brokers and clients alike, we offer stable cover, year after year, in our core lines of business – even through the deepest troughs of market cycles.
Since Beazley's establishment in 1986 – and particularly since 2001 – our business has grown and diversified significantly. The chart below shows the growth of gross written premiums for all business managed by the group. The group share of this premium was 82%, or \$1,712.5m in 2011.
With an experienced team of leading underwriters who have been together since the early 1990s, our personal accident and specialty life business is written on both an insurance and reinsurance basis and covers a number of niche classes, including sports disability. The business was acquired by Beazley in 2008 and has grown since then organically and through further acquisition.
We help insure in excess of 20% of the world's ocean-going tonnage and are the prominent leader of voyage and tow business in the London market. We insure 30% of the top 200 oil and gas companies and are a major lead for upstream energy clients. We have extensive experience insuring a wide variety of cargoes including project, fine art and specie.
In addition to traditional lines such as contract frustration, expropriation and credit, we insure a growing number of businesses against terrorism and political violence. Our contingency team is one of the strongest in the London market. We specialise in event cancellation – writing everything from weddings to world cups.
We've protected clients ranging from Fortune 1000 companies to homeowners through 19 years of natural and manmade catastrophes. We underwrite this business through three geographic platforms; Lloyd's, the US, and Singapore with a business focus on commercial
property, coverholders' business, engineering and construction risks, and select homeowners business.
The reinsurance team specialises in writing worldwide property catastrophe; per risk; aggregate excess of loss and pro-rata business; and casualty clash. More than 80% of our top 20 clients have reinsured with us for 15 years or more.
Specialty lines comprises professional liability and management liability risks underwritten for clients on both a primary and excess basis in North America, Europe and around the world. Our US clients are served both by our underwriters at Lloyd's and by our local US-based underwriters, including our dedicated small business team that focuses on the needs of smaller scale clients.
Beazley's diversified underwriting portfolio performed well, delivering a profit before tax of \$62.7m in the worst year on record for insured natural catastrophes.
Financial and operational highlights
Profit before income tax
\$62.7m
Return on equity 6.1%
The executive remuneration policy is set by the remuneration committee and is governed by two guiding principles:
• Alignment to shareholder interests; and • Performance of the group.
Reward at Beazley is centred around the following incentive initiatives:
Further details of the remuneration policy are set out on pages 57 to 72.
Beazley group began life in 1986 as Beazley, Furlonge & Hiscox. The Hiscox group was bought out in 1992. The company has grown steadily in terms of the risks we cover, the clients we serve and our geographic reach. Beazley today is a mature insurance business with a well diversified portfolio. During this time we have weathered some of the toughest times the Lloyd's market has seen in more than three centuries and our underwriting operations have an unbroken record of profitability.
Managed gross premiums \$US Total Beazley
syndicates' capacity
UK Bishopsgate explosion US \$750m
Managed gross premiums \$US Corporate capital introduced to Lloyd's
US Northridge earthquake US \$12.5bn
1996 124.2m Managed gross premiums \$US
Managed gross premiums \$US Lloyd's Reconstruction and Renewal introduced
Lloyd's Active members: 13,062 Capacity: £9,994m
Syndicates: 167
128.4m Managed gross
premiums \$US Beazley Dedicated established
APUA, based in Hong Kong, forms a strategic partnership with Beazley Furlonge
Lloyd's Reconstruction and Renewal concluded
1998
Recall, Contingency and Political Risk accounts started
168.8m Managed gross premiums \$US 217.1m Managed gross premiums \$US
Marine account started
European storms US \$12bn
Managed gross premiums \$US
1,371.0m Group share \$US
Beazley takes full ownership of APUA and renames it Beazley Limited
Expansion of Construction & Engineering team into Singapore
Beazley opens new office in Paris
Lloyd's Active members: 2,211
Capacity: £14,788m
Syndicates: 65
premiums \$US 1,561.0m Group share \$US
1,620.0m Group share \$US Political Risk & Contingency
2008 1,984.9m Managed gross premiums \$US
Group formed as new division
Acquisition of Momentum Underwriting Management Accident & Life formed
as a new division
US hurricane Ike US \$20bn
Managed gross premiums \$US
Raised £150m through rights issue to develop our business at Lloyd's and in the US
Acquisition of First State Management Group, Inc., a US underwriting manager focusing on surplus lines commercial property business
Beazley plc becomes the new holding company for the group, incorporated in Jersey and tax resident in Ireland
premiums \$US
Andrew Beazley, co-founder of Beazley Group and chief executive until September 2008, dies at the age of 57
Beazley changes functional and presentational currency to US dollars
Special purpose syndicate 6107 formed to grow
reinsurance business Chile and NZ earthquakes US \$5-8bn
Deepwater Horizon explosion triggers biggest oil spill in history
Expanded Australian accident and health business through acquisition of two MGAs
Launch of the Andrew Beazley Broker Academy
Nick Furlonge, co-founder, retires as an executive member but becomes a non-executive of Beazley Furlonge Limited
Beazley remains profitable in worst year ever for insured natural catastrophe losses
Tohoku earthquake in Japan US \$35bn
Floods in Thailand US \$10-20bn
US tornadoes US \$14bn
NZ earthquake US \$12bn
Beazley is differentiated less by the measures we take to secure competitive advantage than by the way we implement these measures.
To take one example, all insurers aim to assemble a diversified portfolio of risks: indeed, Lloyd's is an attractive place in which to do business partly because an insurer at Lloyd's can assemble a diversified portfolio, sourced by the London market's brokers, quite quickly. But our approach goes well beyond diversification by line of business, as explained opposite.
The same is true of entrepreneurial spirit (open flap). For us it has a very specific meaning, a meaning that guides us in evaluating new hires to our underwriting teams around the world. We look for individuals who have a strong sense of ownership for the business that they underwrite and are willing – indeed keen – to be accountable for their underwriting decisions. And we look for individuals who have a broad understanding of the ways in which economic, political and social changes can impact their book.
Our third area of differentiation – strong partnerships – is also claimed by many. But for us, it is the reciprocity of the relationships – with both brokers and clients – that matters. Strong partnerships with clients are based on the expectation that Beazley will be prepared to provide continuity of coverage over the years. Our clients understand that, for us to deliver on this expectation, we need to charge a fair premium to cover the risk even if, for a time, a competitor may be willing to write the same risks at an uneconomic rate. By adopting this approach, we have been able to provide clients with reliable cover year after year.
* At Beazley, diversification has been deliberately and carefully built into our insurance and reinsurance portfolio in a variety of ways. We diversify by geography, by class of business, by size of risk, and by the speed with which the cost of claims emerges. Our business is a balance of 'short-tail,' meaning that claims usually emerge within a year of the policy's inception and 'medium-tail,' which means that claims can take up to six years to crystallise fully.
This mix served us well in 2011, enabling the company to record an underwriting profit during a year that proved very challenging for more catastrophe exposed insurers.
* Entrepreneurial spirit is something we value highly. Over 26 years we have found that the greatest success comes from taking highly motivated and experienced individuals and giving them the tools and resources to develop their business.
The complexity of the underwriters' job has increased significantly over time as the information available to make decisions has expanded. But the core competences – the ability to assess a risk from all possible angles and, equally, to spot an opportunity that others may have missed – remain unchanged.
* The success of our business depends on strong client relationships. In our reinsurance business, for example, 80% of our top 20 clients have been with us for more than 15 years. Almost a third of the large law firms that rely on us for lawyers' professional liability insurance – a sector in which we are a market leader – have insured with Beazley for more than a decade.
Our broker relationships are also critically important to us. Many of the broking firms we work with are larger and more complex than was the case even a decade ago. And as we have expanded internationally, the number of our broker relationships has increased. Understanding the needs of brokers and maximising the flow of profitable business are key to the success of all our underwriters. From a corporate perspective, they are also strategic priorities that are the focus of Dan Jones and his broker relations team.
Beazley delivered a creditable performance, recording a profit before income tax of \$62.7m.
Jonathan Agnew Chairman
Andrew Horton Chief executive
In a year that severely tested the world's insurers and reinsurers, Beazley delivered a creditable performance, recording a profit before income tax of \$62.7m (2010: \$250.8m) on gross premiums of \$1,712.5m (2010: \$1,741.6m). With a combined ratio of 99% (2010: 88%), our underwriting operations remained in profit despite heavy catastrophe claims in Asia, Australasia and the United States.
The board is pleased to announce a second interim dividend of 5.4p per ordinary share. Together with the first interim dividend of 2.5p this takes the total dividends declared in 2011 to 7.9p per ordinary share (2010: first interim dividend of 2.4p, second interim dividend of 5.1p, totalling 7.5p, plus a special dividend of 2.5p per ordinary share).
The catastrophe losses began with the Queensland floods in Australia and ended, also with floods, in Thailand in November. In between, we incurred claims from the Christchurch, New Zealand earthquake (the second to hit the city in less than six months); the Tohoku earthquake in Japan; and the deadliest succession of tornadoes to hit the US in more than 70 years. The catastrophe loss estimates previously reported in our third quarter interim management statement, excluding flooding in Thailand, have in fact improved slightly. In total, catastrophe events in 2011, including the Thai floods, cost the group an estimated \$215m, more than twice the cost for 2010.
At times like this, a well balanced business portfolio shows its worth. Two of our six divisions (property and reinsurance) have significant exposures to natural catastrophes. In 2011, our property and reinsurance teams moved swiftly to meet claims from policyholders that generated combined ratios for their business of 109% and 157% respectively. But the impact of these losses was cushioned by underwriting profits generated by our other divisions, notably specialty lines, our largest division, which recorded a combined ratio of 94%; marine 72%; and life, accident and health 95%. Our political risks and contingency division incurred claims as a result of the civil war in Libya and some event cancellation claims stemming from the Tohoku earthquake but still achieved a 79% combined ratio.
Locally underwritten US premiums (US \$m)
Prudent reserving has been a hallmark of Beazley's approach to business over more than a quarter of a century. In 2011, total prior year reserve releases were \$186.5m (2010: \$144.6m) of which specialty lines accounted for \$61.8m (2010 \$56.9m).
In light of the claims experience of the past year, rates are now rising across catastrophe exposed classes of business. The rate increases are smaller than they would have been had the market not been very well capitalised at the beginning of the year. But the change has nevertheless been significant. We accordingly plan to increase our property and reinsurance underwriting in 2012 and, across the group, expect to see premium growth of between 5% and 10%.
Growth in non-catastrophe lines of business will be selective in 2012, in line with our stringent profitability requirements. In the US, we continue to see robust demand for data breach protection policies – a market in which we hold a leading position. We also see opportunities for growth in the healthcare sector, described in detail on page 28. This covers a wide variety of professional liability risks run by medical service providers, including blood and tissue banks, contract research organisations, dialysis clinics, and ground and air ambulances.
Our focus in lines of business in which competition is currently intense, including professional liability for architects and engineers (A&E) and lawyers, and directors and officers insurance, remains on maintaining price discipline while providing excellent service to our clients. We have witnessed numerous new entrants into these markets in recent years, some writing business on a basis that we view as uneconomic, and we expect to see withdrawals occurring as this becomes apparent. The continuing low level of investment returns means that subsidising underwriting losses with investment returns is not a viable strategy.
Our own investment strategy remains conservative, with 81.5% of our assets held in AA or better securities (with no exposure to those eurozone countries that have recently been the direct subject of solvency concerns). Our investment yield in 2011 remained stable at 1.0% and benefited from the decision taken in 2010 to increase the portfolio duration. Our alternative asset portfolio, comprising 10.3% of our investments, made a small loss in 2011 which compared favourably to the HFRI fund of funds index.
The US remains by far our most important market, accounting for 57% of our gross written premiums in 2011. Of this, \$366.2m was underwritten locally by our US underwriters (2010: \$393.6m). In March we decided to withdraw from underwriting admitted commercial property business to focus on the development of our non admitted, or surplus lines property business, where we saw stronger profit opportunities. We plan to grow our surplus lines property business in 2012 to take advantage of the more attractive rates that now prevail for catastrophe exposed risks.
Outside the US, we made significant investments in the growth of our business in 2011. In April we expanded our presence in the Australian group disability market through the purchase of two managing general agencies, Australian Income Protection and Blue-GUM Special Risks. Combining these businesses with our existing Australian accident and health operation enables us to offer a full product range, including permanent and temporary disability benefits, to superannuation funds, employers and affinity groups.
Continental Europe is another region that we see as offering real growth potential, particularly for our specialty lines division. Our initial focus is on the French market: we are hiring or transferring new underwriters to our Paris office and working to strengthen our local broker relationships. Our focus in France, as elsewhere, is to develop products tailored to local needs, rather than assuming that products developed in the UK or US can simply be exported into markets with very different characteristics.
Our vision is to become, and be recognised as, the highest performing specialist insurer; and we made good progress against this objective in 2011. Our business model was strenuously tested and still delivered positive shareholder returns.
Our strategy focuses on three areas. The first – prudent capital allocation to achieve diversified profitability across the group – was well illustrated in 2011 by our acquisitions in Australia. The performance of our Australian group disability business is uncorrelated with that of our other businesses – even in the Australian market, where we also write event cancellation insurance. The diversification of our underwriting portfolio – across lines of business, geographies, and sizes of risk – has underpinned the consistency of our underwriting performance in recent years.
Our second area of focus is to nurture and enhance our skills base. Since the company was founded in 1986, we have sought to create an environment at Beazley in which talented individuals with entrepreneurial spirit can build successful businesses. One of the most striking examples in the past three years has been our technology, media and business services (TMB) team within our specialty lines division. Under the leadership of Mike Donovan, based in our San Francisco office, this team's premiums have grown from \$108.9m in 2010 to \$120.8m last year.
The environment in which Beazley underwriters work today is different in character from that of a decade, or even five years, ago. Regulatory demands have grown and a business with underwriters in multiple locations is inevitably more challenging to manage than a business operated entirely from the Beazley box at Lloyd's. Our talent management team under the leadership of Penny Malik therefore focuses not just on attracting and retaining the best underwriting and claims specialists in the market but also on giving them the training and resources they need to realise their potential.
Our third strategic priority is to scale our operations to ensure that, as we grow, we can continue to provide the very high level of service that our brokers and clients have come to expect. Technologies that help us to respond rapidly to broker submissions and adjust claims efficiently are clearly critical in this context, but equally important are strong, trust-based broker relationships. Dan Jones heads our team responsible for broker relations at Beazley and it is a key part of our business.
In 2011 we launched an important initiative that we hope will strengthen broker relationships, not just for Beazley but for the entire Lloyd's market in years to come. The inaugural Andrew Beazley Broker Academy, hosted by Beazley and Hiscox in September, welcomed 21 young US brokers to London where, for a week, they were able to stand in the shoes of Lloyd's underwriters, gaining a detailed understanding of how risks are written and claims are adjusted in the Lloyd's market. The initiative was very well received by the brokers who participated and we are planning to merge it with the existing Lloyd's broker programme – while retaining the Andrew Beazley name – from 2012 onwards.
Our broker relationships go back years in many cases. A newer partnership for Beazley is the one we established in 2010 with British Fencing, which we are sponsoring for five years. This will be an exciting and challenging year for the national team, with the best fencers in the world converging on London for the Olympics. We wish the team luck.
Solvency II is an EU-wide proposal on capital adequacy and risk management for insurers. Throughout 2011 Beazley's dedicated project management team and subject matter experts have continued to build our framework. In particular the Solvency II internal model was built and tested.
In 2011 we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the founding of Beazley and it was also the year in which Nick Furlonge, who co-founded the company with Andrew Beazley in 1986, chose to retire from the Beazley board. Nick's contribution to Beazley is inestimable: we are delighted that we continue to benefit from his wisdom and insight through his remaining on the board of Beazley Furlonge Limited, our Lloyd's managing agency. Nick was named 'industry achiever of the year' at the Insurance Day awards in December, and the accolade was well deserved.
Andy Pomfret, who joined the Beazley board in 2003, left the board in July to concentrate on his role as chief executive officer of Rathbone Brothers Plc. In addition to his other board responsibilities, Andy had made considerable contributions to the company as chairman of the remuneration committee and as senior independent director, for which we are very grateful. He was succeeded as chairman of the remuneration committee by Padraic O'Connor and as senior independent director by George Blunden.
As previously announced, Jonathan Agnew will step down from the board after the annual general meeting on 27 March, by which time he will have been a non-executive director for ten years and chairman for nearly nine years. During that period the group's written premium has more than trebled and the principal managed syndicates maintained their record of continuous profitability, which goes back to the founding of Beazley and which is now unrivalled in Lloyd's. Jonathan Agnew considers it an honour and a privilege to have been associated with Andrew Beazley and Nick Furlonge, who founded the business, and with all those who have subsequently contributed to its success. The board and senior management at Beazley would like to thank Jonathan for his leadership during a period that has seen the company develop and flourish.
In July we also welcomed Dennis Holt to the Beazley board as a non executive director. Dennis is expected to take up the position of non-executive chairman following the annual general meeting in March 2012, succeeding Jonathan Agnew, who wishes Dennis Holt, Andrew Horton and their colleagues every success in the future.
Additionally, we welcomed two new members of the executive committee in the course of the year: Ian Fantozzi and Penny Malik. Ian was promoted to the executive management team as chief operating officer, succeeding David Marock, who left the company to assume the role of chief executive of Charles Taylor Consulting.
The 805 employees of Beazley have reason to be proud of our achievements in 2011 – achievements recognised at the Insurance Day awards in December, when Beazley was named company of the year.
There can be no guarantee that the tempestuous market conditions we have witnessed in 2011 will not recur – if the future was predictable, insurance would be unnecessary. But we have every confidence that our clients and brokers will continue to find Beazley well prepared to meet their needs.
Jonathan Agnew Andrew Horton Chairman Chief executive
6 February 2012
Andrew Horton reviews Beazley's performance and describes the risks and opportunities he foresees in 2012.
Q Beazley has weathered the worst year ever for natural catastrophes with a 99% combined ratio. How do you view – and explain – this performance?
A We performed relatively well in 2011 because we have a diversified book and we had managed our catastrophe aggregates very prudently in readiness for such a scenario. We were prepared for a quick-fire succession of catastrophe losses of the kind that we saw, from all around the world, last year.
A We'll see some growth in our short-tail, catastrophe exposed business – principally commercial property and reinsurance. Rates are going up so, for the same risk appetite, we will receive more premium income.
I am excited by the opportunities available to our accident and health teams in Australia and the US. We have excellent people in both locations and we're selling into growing markets.
We'll continue to be alert to acquisition opportunities, providing they meet our strict criteria. I've described these before, but they bear repetition. They have to be in lines of business that we understand well. They have to have great underwriting skills and a track record to prove it. They have to fit well with our culture – people with real entrepreneurial energy and enthusiasm. And of course the price has to be right.
But even if we don't find a single such opportunity in 2012, there will still be areas in which we can grow organically. That growth will come from innovation – very broadly defined. It may take the form of a totally new product or service. Or it may take the form of a product that is old hat in one part of the world but new and exciting in another. I have every confidence in our people to identify such opportunities.
A The eurozone countries are not an enormous source of business for us – they account for less than 15% of our total premium income. And we have been extremely cautious in our investment strategy and hold no Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, Irish or Italian bonds.
However, if the problems of the eurozone worsen dramatically, that will clearly have an impact – albeit an indirect impact – on Beazley. Global trade is far from robust right now. Our marine team tells me that, for many shipowners, the cost of keeping their vessels afloat exceeds what they can earn from the cargoes they are carrying. So they are putting vessels into lay-up, which reduces the amount of hull and cargo insurance business we can underwrite. The same logic applies to other lines of business. Inevitably, if the world were to move back into recession as a result of a major contraction in demand in Europe, that would have an impact on us.
A Most of the reduction was in our property insurance business. We withdrew from underwriting commercial property insurance on an admitted basis because it was difficult to compete against much larger domestic carriers despite having an excellent team of underwriters. We continue our focus on our London-based large risks property business and our US-based excess and surplus (E&S) property business. And our appetite in the admitted market was fairly narrow so we weren't a particularly attractive partner to our brokers. At the same time, we scaled down our E&S property underwriting a little because the rates were inadequate. But that's changing and we expect to write more of this business this year.
We continue to see great growth potential in the US. The coming year may be tough but when market conditions are right our growth trajectory will resume. The preconditions for growth – strong broker relationships and really first class service capabilities – are in place. We have a good deal of headroom in many of the lines of business in which we compete.
Andrew Horton Chief executive
Q We are said by some to be in the 'cheating phase' of the insurance cycle where claims reserve releases are still being made when the underlying business dynamics don't support this. Is that your view?
A We've seen reserve releases continue for longer than many market analysts had expected so there are some legitimate questions to be asked about the adequacy of the reserves that remain. The key here really is disclosure. Levels of disclosure about reserving strength vary widely across the market. We are among the less reticent by providing to analysts a good deal more detail on the development of incurred claims within our specialty lines division than many insurers are willing to do. We also disclose loss development tables by lines of business (pages 123 to 126) and the percentage margin by which our claims reserve in total exceeds our actuarial estimate (page 33). I hope that our levels of disclosure – combined with the fact that we've been writing these classes of business for a very long time through multiple market cycles – is a source of reassurance to our investors.
Q Have you modified your very conservative investment stance in the course of the past year?
A 2011 has been a year which has demonstrated why we have been relatively conservative recently – there is a lot of risk and uncertainty about. Our strategy remains unchanged and has performed as we expected in 2011.
Q Most insurers – and particularly Lloyd's insurers – claim to be innovative. What does the word mean to you and do you think Beazley is innovative?
A It's interesting to read the report that Lloyd's itself has just produced. It lists the most feared risks around, according to over 500 senior executives who were polled by the Economist Intelligence Unit. And like an awful lot of these reports, it's very difficult to see what part insurance plays in addressing the top risks – the risks that really keep these business leaders up at night. You have to go all the way down to risk number 9 – corporate liability – before reaching a risk that is really addressed by insurance.
So for me innovation in our industry has a simple meaning. It's making ourselves more relevant to the most pressing needs of our clients. And if that means that when a claim is made, our response is not a cash payment but a service of some kind, so be it. Cash is wonderful, but what clients sometimes need most is expertise. I think that, as an industry, we have to be much smarter about this.
Seen in this context, Beazley is innovative but we could certainly be more so. I think our focus on claims service is – and this may be a sad reflection on our industry – quite innovative. For the professional and management liability business we underwrite, the client's most important question is not 'When will my claim get paid?' It is 'Do I want this insurer in my corner when I get sued?' And the advice and expertise we can offer in that situation is critical. So there's a lot of scope for innovation on the claims side as well as on the underwriting side.
Q Solvency II is now looming. How prepared is Beazley and what impact do you see Solvency II's tighter capital requirements having on the industry as a whole?
A We believe we're ready. We've put a significant effort into preparing for Solvency II across our organisation. We've had seven people working on it full time and 43 people devoting part of their time to it. I am confident that we will secure approval for our internal model, which will maintain our flexibility and competitiveness. And we're looking for ways in which, as a business, we can achieve a competitive advantage over insurers that are maybe not quite as well diversified as we are.
The diversification of our portfolio stood us in good stead in a very challenging year.
Combined ratio 95% 97% Rate change 1% – Combined ratio 79% 65% Rate change (1%) (2%)
Combined ratio 72% 71% Rate change – (3%)
Neil Maidment Chief underwriting officer
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Jonathan Gray Head of property
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| \$m | \$m | |
| Gross premiums written | 359.4 382.5 | |
| Net premiums written | 273.9 | 283.8 |
| Results from | (9.5) | 23.3 |
| operating activities | ||
| Claims ratio | 63% | 49% |
| Expense ratio | 46% | 48% |
| Combined ratio | 109% | 97% |
| Rate change | 3% | (4%) |
Patrick Hartigan Head of reinsurance
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| \$m | \$m | |
| Gross premiums written | 178.3 | 174.4 |
| Net premiums written | 130.4 | 134.4 |
| Results from | (71.3) | 18.8 |
| operating activities | ||
| Claims ratio | 130% | 63% |
| Expense ratio | 27% | 27% |
| Combined ratio | 157% | 90% |
| Rate change | 3% | (3%) |
Property Reinsurance Specialty lines
Adrian Cox Head of specialty lines
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| \$m | \$m | |
| Gross premiums written | 711.2 | 744.0 |
| Net premiums written | 559.1 | 597.0 |
| Results from | 63.8 | 76.4 |
| operating activities | ||
| Claims ratio | 60% | 61% |
| Expense ratio | 34% | 32% |
| Combined ratio | 94% | 93% |
| Rate change | (1%) | (2%) |
Business review Performance by division
Presence in Australia grows as a result of the acquisition of Australian Income Protection.
Chris Branch Head of life, accident & health
On 1 July 2011, the owners of the clubs comprising the National Basketball Association (NBA) began a standoff with players that would last 161 days. The fourth lockout in the NBA's history meant that professional basketball – one of the most popular spectator sports in the US – was suspended until December.
While owners and players held countless negotiations to resolve what, at times, became a very acrimonious dispute, several players looked overseas to play. Europe and Asia were the preferred destinations. Such a move was particularly attractive to foreign players in the NBA who could play in their home countries until the lockout ended. The risks associated with this migration were not lost on David Stern, the NBA commissioner, who warned that players' contracts could be jeopardised if they were seriously injured.
As a recognised market leader in the provision of disablement cover to sports players and their governing associations, Beazley was well equipped to offer the players cover that would protect their earnings from a temporary injury and also provide cover for a career ending injury. Beazley's sports personal accident underwriters, Peter Thompson and Charlotte Garner, worked closely with the players, the European clubs and their brokers to provide appropriate cover.
Beazley's underwriters have been providing this type of cover to a variety of sports – most notably cricket, rugby union and football – for more than 15 years.
Our life, accident and health division, led by Chris Branch, recorded a third year of growth in 2011, boosted by a significant acquisition in Australia, and achieved a combined ratio of 95% (2010: 97%) on gross premiums of \$86.9m (2010: \$78.1m). The team has been a pioneer in the recent development of a specialist life insurance market at Lloyd's, establishing in 2008 the first new life syndicate at Lloyd's in two decades. We are also a London market leader for personal accident business, underwritten on both a direct and reinsurance basis. Across our portfolio, we led 68% of the business we underwrote in 2011.
Claims experience on our London market core account was generally benign last year and the string of natural catastrophes that affected other lines of business had no impact on us. Competition remained stiff in a number of areas, but still, overall rates on renewal business increased by 1%. We continued to identify profitable opportunities, particularly for our life syndicate, which focuses on renewable group life business that cannot readily be placed in the mainstream market.
Market conditions for sports disability insurance have been challenging in recent years with intense competition. We lead the Lloyd's sports consortium, the largest insurer of sports liability risks for professional athletes outside the US, focusing primarily on rugby, cricket and football. Peter Thompson, who underwrites this account, is a consummate professional who is well respected across the London market. His disciplined underwriting approach has ensured that we have significantly outperformed the market in terms of profitability.
Looking beyond the Lloyd's market, Australia was a major area of focus for us in 2011. In April we significantly expanded our presence in the Australian group disability market through the purchase of two managing general agencies (MGAs), Australian Income Protection (AIP) and Blue-GUM Special Risks (Blue-GUM), which focus on these business lines.
Since 2003, AIP has built a successful business specialising in providing group disability insurance to industry superannuation funds, retirement funds run by industry associations and trade unions. Blue-GUM, a smaller firm, focuses on the distribution and management of life insurance-based group disability and death benefit policies. We are combining the two companies with our existing Australian accident and health business, enabling us to offer a full product range – including permanent and temporary disability benefits – to superannuation funds, employers and affinity groups. With an extremely capable team led by Noel Nosworthy, we underwrote \$30.5m in gross premiums in Australia in 2011 and see significant growth opportunities in what remains an extremely vibrant economy.
Growth opportunities also exist in the US, where our team will be rolling out a suite of 'gap protection' products during the course of 2012 to provide employers with flexible and cost-effective benefit options, while helping employees offset expenses or replace lost income when it is needed most. In the coming year we will be offering supplemental medical expense (out-of-pocket) and limited medical (fixed indemnity), critical illness and short term disability cover. Our team, led by Paul Gulstrand, has been working hard to put in place the infrastructure to service this business efficiently, including a convenient web portal for enrolling in and maintaining benefit plans, which is intuitive to use.
All of these products will be offered in the US admitted market. We also continue to underwrite group personal accident cover on a reinsurance basis locally in the US from our Chicago office. Business review Performance by division
Another profitable year with a combined ratio of 72%.
Clive Washbourn Head of marine
Portfolio mix
Gross premiums written (\$m)
During the Libyan civil war, vessels delivering medical supplies and medical assistance provided a lifeline to anti-government militia in the central coastal city of Misrata. With the rebel forces pegged back, sea transportation provided the only route for evacuating the wounded and refugees.
War perils such as this are usually excluded from traditional hull and machinery policies, with only a limited market available for those looking to arrange cover. Beazley has been writing a marine war book since 1998 and is the largest insurer for this type of risk in the world. With the support of insurance cover provided by Beazley and other London market insurers, numerous voyages were successfully completed to and from Misrata.
Beazley's market leading position is underpinned by a wealth of knowledge and expertise to understand and price war risks. Tailored policies were put together for Mediterranean ferry operators to protect their vessels and crew, often at very short notice, allowing them to perform a vitally important role.
Marine war policies are not just purchased when a conflict is raging. Cover can also include confiscations and detention of the vessel which is a pre-requisite for vessels entering potentially dangerous waters such as the Indian Ocean where piracy is an ever present danger or a port where the political situation is volatile or uncertain.
Our marine division, led by Clive Washbourn, has established over many years a reputation as one of the strongest performers at Lloyd's, and 2011 was no exception. The team achieved a combined ratio of 72% (2010: 71%) at a time of flat or declining premium rates for all main classes of cover except for energy risks. In addition to energy, the team insures a broad array of hull, cargo and marine liability risks, as well as war and terrorism risks for both ships and aircraft. In 2011, we led the cover for 52% of the business by volume that we underwrote.
The breadth of the team's expertise served us well in 2011. Demand for tanker and container shipments declined, while trade in bulk goods and liquefied petroleum gas – sectors in which Beazley specialised – remained relatively robust. Across our hull and cargo accounts, we saw renewal rates fall by an average of 1%. However, demand for war risks cover was high, particularly as a result of the civil war in Libya (see case study). Beazley insures around a fifth of all war risks business placed in the London market.
Piracy in the Gulf of Aden and around the Horn of Africa – a severe menace to shipping since 2008 – continued unabated, with an increasing number of attacks in 2011. However, owing to improved security on ships the incidence of vessel captures fell and we saw lower claims frequency than in 2010.
Energy risks accounted for 43% of the business underwritten by the division in 2011, or \$106.2m, up from \$94.2m in 2010. In October, we welcomed Matthew Holmes to Beazley as the new head of our energy team. Energy risks have accounted for a growing proportion of the business underwritten by the division in recent years and we expect this share to continue to grow, market conditions permitting. Rates for energy business rose by 4% in 2011, driven by the tightening in capacity that followed the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Our Oslo office, opened early in 2010 to access locally placed Scandinavian energy business, wrote \$8.0m of premium in 2011.
We have historically taken a very cautious approach to energy liability business, seeing it as substantially underpriced. Following the strong focus on this section of the market from the Lloyd's performance management directorate in 2011, this may change in 2012 and we will be alert to opportunities. Overall, we expect energy premium rates to remain flat in 2012 in the absence of further catastrophe losses.
An important initiative that we launched in 2009 – the creation of underwriting capacity and expertise for marine professional liability risks within the Lloyd's market – continued to develop well under the leadership of Zareena Hussain, who has headed our entire marine liability team since 2010. The team underwrites a broad range of professional liability risks for a wide array of maritime professionals, from average adjustors to yacht brokers. The Beazley name is of course extremely strong in the wider world of professional liability and we have found the strong broker relationships forged by our colleagues in Beazley's specialty lines division very valuable.
Our UK marine unit continues to grow under the leadership of Stephen Smyth. In addition to serving Lloyd's brokers, the team also partners with UK regional brokers, offering a wide range of products including cargo, freight liability, hull and machinery, and marine liability. Many segments of this market are highly competitive but by careful risk selection Steve and his team have succeeded in growing the account profitably.
Continued expansion of our global presence, with underwriters in the US, Singapore and Australia, and plans for France.
Adrian Lewers Head of political risks & contingency 2011
Political risks claims (including contract frustration and trade credit risks) are traditionally low frequency but, when they occur, they can be significant.
2011 was an active year for political risks claims and the PCG claims team handled claims arising from the unrest in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region as the events of the Arab Spring took their toll on foreign investments in the region, notably in the oil and defence industries. The claims team also dealt with claims in both the MENA and West Africa regions for property damage and business interruption losses arising from civil commotion.
Additionally, the contingency account was impacted by claims arising from the raft of natural catastrophes during 2011, including the earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand which forced the cancellation or relocation of events insured by the team. There were no claims arising from the Thai flooding at the end of 2011.
Beazley's PCG claims team, led by Hannah Purves, has built up a strong reputation in the London market for speed and efficiency of claims settlement. The team also handles recoveries on claims paid in earlier years, which were substantial in 2011, amounting to over \$20m.
The claims team enjoys a close working relationship with Beazley's underwriters – ensuring that claims experience can be swiftly reflected in enhanced policy wordings – and with London market brokers, ensuring that insureds are kept fully informed as claims are processed.
Beazley's political risks and contingency division, led by Adrian Lewers, insures a broad array of exposures, including conventional political risks (confiscation, nationalisation and expropriation); political violence and terrorism; and costs arising from the cancellation of events ranging in size from major sports tournaments to specialist trade shows and fairs. In 2011, despite significant political turbulence in many parts of the world and a series of natural catastrophes that had knock-on effects on our event cancellation business, the team achieved a combined ratio of 79% on gross premiums of \$102.5m.
The political risks market remained highly competitive in 2011, reflecting a 40% increase in available capacity for trade related risks since the financial crisis of 2008. We have, however, maintained our disciplined approach to risk assessment and pricing, and continued to make sizeable recoveries on claims paid out in earlier years. It is possible that this pattern of recoveries will be repeated in Libya, where in the course of 2011 we incurred a number of claims to European exporters for contract frustration in respect of their relationships with the previous government.
Our claims team under the leadership of Hannah Purves is one of the most experienced in the Lloyd's market and continued in 2011 to win praise from brokers and clients alike for our sensitive handling of complex claims. In the case of Libya, for example, many of our clients have a strong interest in establishing good relationships rapidly with the new regime and we are supporting their efforts to do this.
Political violence was also widespread last year, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa. In April, we strengthened our team with the arrival of Chris Parker, who joined us from Marsh to head the team, and Andrew Page. The largest single component of our political violence account is not in developing economies but in the US and Europe, where we underwrite specialist terrorism cover for property owners – a risk that has not been easily insurable under standard property policies since the terrorist attacks of 2001. Premium rates on this business have declined in recent years but it continues to be profitable. We have a well diversified book with prudently managed aggregate exposures.
Beazley's contingency team is one of the largest and most experienced in the Lloyd's market. Given the breadth of business insured by the team, it is not surprising that the exceptional sequence of natural catastrophes that occurred in 2011 should have had some impact, and we received contingency claims from both Japan and New Zealand following the earthquakes in those countries. In the main, the claims that we paid were not for outright event cancellation but for rescheduling and relocating events out of harm's way. Premium rates have generally held up better than we expected, with renewal rates for the contingency book as a whole declining by 1%.
In addition to event cancellation insurance, which accounted for 72% of our \$27m contingency book in 2011, we are a major market for promotional events such as prize indemnity and over-redemption risks.
The past year saw us continue to expand our global presence outside Lloyd's, although 95% of our premiums are still underwritten at the Beazley box, reflecting the strong reputation of the London market in the political risks and contingency lines. We now have political risks underwriters in New York and Singapore and plan to establish an underwriting presence in Paris in 2012. Our contingency team has an underwriter in Australia and we are expanding our business in the UK regional broker market through Beazley Access, an online platform for small and mid sized event cancellation risks.
Rate improvements follow the restructuring of our US portfolio to focus on excess and surplus lines business.
Jonathan Gray Head of property
Gross premiums written (\$m)
Beazley's Singapore office opened its doors in 2006, as it was beginning to dawn on London insurers that if they wanted a share of business from one of the fastest growing regions in the world, they would have to come and get it. At that time there were only three Lloyd's businesses with a local presence in Singapore. Beazley was in the vanguard.
Today there are 18 service companies representing 21 Lloyd's syndicates and, outside London, Singapore is the biggest concentration of Lloyd's underwriting expertise in the world. Lloyd's Asia underwriters are established local service companies and may deal directly with clients, brokers and agents, both local and foreign.
The focus of Beazley's Singapore office has historically been engineering and construction risks, tapping into the fast growing economies of the region. In 2008 Beazley began to underwrite political risks locally, and in 2009 commercial property business was added to the mix. In 2011, Beazley's team in Singapore underwrote in total S\$15.8m (US\$12.6m) in premiums.
Construction business is unusual in comprising one-off risks that do not renew. The key to success, according to Byran Lee, Beazley's regional underwriting manager, construction and engineering, is strong local broker relationships. Beazley Singapore derives approximately two-thirds of its business from global broking firms such as Aon, Marsh, Willis and Jardine Lloyd Thompson, and the balance from local indigenous brokers, particularly from Taiwan, Korea and Indonesia.
Beazley's property division, led by Jonathan Gray, is a major underwriter of commercial property risks in the London market and, as such, was not immune to the catastrophe losses that pummelled the market in 2011. No one event was of major significance for us, but their cumulative effect weighed on our performance. The division's diversified premium base – comprising large, medium and small scale commercial property risks, homeowners business in the UK and US, and construction and engineering risks underwritten in London, Singapore and the US – maintained balance in our portfolio. The division recorded a 109% combined ratio for the year.
After such an eventful year, premium rates are rising, notwithstanding the substantial capacity still available in the market. Having budgeted for rate declines of 3% in 2011, we have in fact seen rates rise by approximately 3%. Premium rates for all of the teams within the property division, regardless of product or geography, were in positive territory by the end of the year. The sharpest upswing was in our open market property book, comprising large scale property risks underwritten at the Beazley box at Lloyd's, where rates have risen by 5% on average over the year.
The strength and variety of our Lloyd's broker relationships remain important assets for Beazley's property team. The global reach of our broker partners was once again demonstrated in 2011 as we opportunistically expanded our portfolio in a number of regions, notably Mexico, where premium rates on government owned properties have increased significantly. In September we further strengthened our open market team with the arrival of Will Roscoe, who joined us from Willis.
The exceptional series of natural catastrophes in 2011 was doubly unusual in occurring predominantly outside the United States, although the tornadoes that hit a number of southern states in April and May were the most destructive and deadly since 1936. Premium rates for medium sized US property risks, which we underwrite locally through our Beazley E&S (excess and surplus) team, have not risen nearly as steeply as have rates for the larger risks, and we reduced our underwriting in this segment in 2011. However, we expect rates to strengthen during 2012 and our premium volume once again to increase.
In March we also made the decision to withdraw from the admitted market for US commercial property business. Capacity for these risks, which contain little or no catastrophe exposure, continues to be abundant, and we took the view that we could achieve higher margins across the cycle by focusing on the more catastrophe exposed business underwritten by Beazley E&S. Business brought to us by coverholders – agents underwriting on our behalf through delegated authorities – has always been important to Beazley, and during the course of 2011 we consolidated this business into a new small business unit, led by Paul Bromley. Paul and his team proactively manage their coverholder relationships, around half of which relate to small scale commercial property business from around the world, a quarter to homeowners' risks (predominantly in the UK and US), and a quarter to jewellers' block business, where we are the UK market leader.
The focus of our small business unit is to seek out the best, most experienced coverholders we can find and support them with exceptional service. The rating environment in the United States for our covers book has been positive and, although we paid some jewellers block claims in the UK as a result of the riots that swept through parts of the country in August, we expect to recover most of this under the terms of the UK Riot Act.
Our construction and engineering team enjoyed mixed fortunes in 2011. We continue to see growth opportunities for our locally based underwriters in London and in Asia. In Singapore we have a successful and growing team that has been able to access regional business that we would not normally see in London (see case study). However, market conditions for construction and engineering risks have been challenging, particularly in London. We experienced some claims deterioration on certain large and complex multi-year projects and have scaled down our underwriting of such business, focusing instead on shorter term projects.
Looking ahead, we see numerous areas of opportunity in 2012 in the context of a much more positive rate environment. Our premium retention rates testify to the service we provide. We continue to invest in claims expertise and in underwriters who, while being sensitive to market conditions, are also alive to the importance of strong broker and client relationships.
Multiple events impacted the performance of this division during the worst year on record for insured natural catastrophes.
Patrick Hartigan Head of reinsurance
Rarely in history have insurers been confronted by challenges comparable to that facing them on Saturday 12 March, the day after a massive earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Tohoku region of Japan. More than 15,000 people died during and after the quake, which registered nine on the moment magnitude scale, destroying or damaging 125,000 buildings, according to the Japanese national police agency. The Japanese prime minister, Naoto Kan, described the disaster as the greatest crisis to hit the country since World War Two.
Insured market losses for these events are estimated to have cost \$35bn to \$40bn. Beazley's share of the loss, although modest by comparison with many reinsurers, nevertheless accounted for our largest catastrophe loss event in 2011.
Beazley has been reinsuring Japanese insurance companies since 1993. Events such as the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami are what the cover is for.
In the worst year ever for insured natural catastrophes, it was inevitable that our reinsurance division, led by Patrick Hartigan, would incur substantial losses. Beazley's reinsurance losses were in line with our market share, resulting in a combined ratio of 157% (2010: 90%) on gross premium income of \$178.3m.
A succession of severe events impacted the reinsurance market in 2011, beginning with widespread flooding in Queensland, Australia during January costing approximately \$2.3bn. In February, a shallow but deadly earthquake hit Christchurch, New Zealand causing in the region of \$12bn in insured damage. Less than three weeks later, the Tohoku earthquake, with a magnitude of 9.0 – the strongest ever recorded in Japan – devastated the north east coast of Japan through the combination of shock and, more overwhelmingly, tsunami. Insured damage has been estimated at \$35bn-\$40bn with economic damage of some \$200bn. While the US was spared a significant hurricane in 2011 (Hurricane Irene proved less costly than at first feared, at \$7bn), the combination of winter storms in the first quarter followed by two of the most violent tornadoes on record in the second quarter caused insured losses of approximately \$14bn, double the figure of the previous year. The last quarter of the year provided no respite as prolonged rainfall in Thailand led to flooding in the industrial parks north of Bangkok. While the event is still being assessed, insured losses are estimated at \$10bn-\$20bn.
Beazley's reinsurance team manages its exposures to strict territorial limits with a bias towards the world's more mature insurance economies. This enables us to manage our risk in areas where data quality is strong, counterparties are experienced and effective in their own risk management, and profit margins are generally more robust. This also mitigates the risk of a private catastrophe (from which our share of a loss would be disproportionate to our market share). Our strategy has mitigated the effect of the losses of 2011 to the reinsurance team, ensuring that they are both proportionate to our market share and within our risk appetite.
Reinsurance rates, as a consequence of the events described above, have increased by approximately 50% to 100% in Australia; 150% to 300% in New Zealand; 50% to 100% in Japan; 25% in the US; and more than 100% in Thailand. In other areas, rate increases have been more modest.
An additional consequence of these events has been to drive a significant improvement in terms for low frequency, high severity areas, typically exposed to earthquake or extreme flood. Beazley's reinsurance team has been at the forefront of driving changes to the catastrophe risk environment by limiting territorial coverage and more closely assigning a rate per peril, which has enabled us to calibrate the price of cover more accurately with the exposures we are running.
Estimating the scale of natural catastrophe losses, particularly in the early days after the event, is notoriously difficult. Our methodology in catastrophe loss assessment and reserving is primarily based on using a ground-up approach to our portfolio. We apply a probable maximum loss (PML) factor to the insured values for the clients in the region affected and subsequently relate this to the relevant reinsurance programmes in which we participate. We also apply a loss amplification factor to account for any uncertainties associated with the loss, which we adjust depending on the complexity of the event. By these means, we aim to provide our investors with robust loss estimates that do not require subsequent upward revision.
Beazley's reinsurance account benefits from two other important features. We have very strong, long term client relationships: 80% of our top 20 reinsureds have been buying cover from us for more than 15 years. We also have a very well diversified account by geography and peril.
One element in this diversification is our continental European business, which we underwrite both at Lloyd's and through our Munich office, opened in October 2008. The Munich office, which underwrote just under \$20m in premiums last year, enables us to access business from continental Europe that would not normally come to Lloyd's.
Cycle management expertise contributed to a 94% combined ratio in often challenging markets.
Adrian Cox Head of specialty lines
Gross premiums written (\$m)
Miscellaneous medical risks – often abbreviated to 'misc med' and also known in the insurance market as 'allied healthcare' – is a label that applies to a broad range of professional liability risks. For Beazley, it is a market with significant growth potential that plays to our strengths as a specialist insurer.
Led by Evan Smith in Beazley's Chicago office, the misc med team currently comprises four underwriters supported
by five claims professionals, and quotes for business in both the US and London. The team insures professional liability risks for a wide array of service providers, including healthcare staffing agencies, home care providers, mental health services, chemical detox facilities, tissue and blood banks, organ procurement organisations, contract research organisations, correctional healthcare (care provided in penal institutions), medi-spas, dialysis clinics, and ground and air ambulances.
The team's message to brokers is simple: if you have an unusual healthcare risk, we can probably find a solution. The message is welcome because many of the risks the team handles on a daily basis are unfamiliar to brokers that lack experience in this sector of the market. Flexibility is the
team's watchword: Beazley's underwriters pride themselves on being able to tailor coverage to the specific needs of individual clients. Unlike some insurers, the team can consider risks with operations and exposures outside the US.
Providing exceptional service is a major focus of the team, which includes two underwriting assistants in Chicago to help ensure a rapid response to brokers' submissions and enquiries. As medical science advances and the US population ages, the status of healthcare as America's largest and fastest growing industry looks secure. And demand from brokers for well designed insurance cover for the industry's more unusual and hard to place risks looks likely to grow.
Specialty lines, led by Adrian Cox, is Beazley's largest division, accounting for 42% of the company's gross written premiums in 2011. At a time of frequent and severe natural catastrophes, specialty lines – representing in the main professional liability, management liability, and medical malpractice business – has been a source of stable and consistent underwriting returns. The division recorded a combined ratio of 94% (2010: 93%).
The price of long term success in our markets is constant vigilance. We manage our portfolio actively to maximise our profitability over the cycle. For our clients we are not a fair weather friend – we aim to provide them with continuity of cover in a volatile market where capacity can become scarce very quickly. The corollary of this is that, when capacity is abundant, as has been the case in many lines of business recently, we will not be among the lowest priced markets. Ours is a well diversified portfolio across geographies, lines of business, and size of risks.
An important contribution to our performance in 2011 – \$61.8m – derived from reserves released from prior years' underwriting after it became evident that they were no longer required to meet potential claims. Beazley has historically adopted a conservative reserving approach and our reserve release this year, which was in line with our 2010 release, bears witness to this.
Underwriting conditions remain highly competitive for many of the lines of business in which the team specialises. Insurance capital is still plentiful – even excessive in some markets such as architects' and engineers' (A&E) professional liability and directors and officers (D&O) insurance. Simultaneously, demand for many of the services our clients provide remains depressed due to low rates of economic growth in our principal markets, notably the United States. Both of these forces put downward pressure on premium rates. Furthermore the low level of insurers' investment returns provides little cushion to absorb underwriting losses. Overall, we saw renewal rates across our specialty lines business decline by 1% in 2011.
Our claims experience has also to some extent reflected the broader economic malaise affecting our clients. In 2008 we introduced a new and very rigorous underwriting approach to recession planning which has paid off since. The first class of business affected was employment practices liability (EPL), where claims commonly increase at times of rising unemployment. However, we saw premium rates begin to rise for EPL risks at the end of 2011 and we expect to grow in this class next year.
In 2011, as we had foreseen, we saw recession related claims against lawyers and architects and engineers continue to increase. Lawyers who advised on corporate transactions initiated
in the boom years have also found themselves targets of litigation when those deals subsequently soured. Our very experienced specialist claims staff have been working closely with our clients to support them during these challenging times. This focus, combined with our recession planning, has had a beneficial effect on our loss ratios.
We are also seeing a change in the types of claim brought against directors and officers, away from traditional SEC class actions and towards claims deriving from M&A activity and increased regulatory scrutiny. We have begun to see this trend contribute to a modest upturn in rates in the D&O market.
Claims experience in other lines of business in which Beazley has long specialised has proved more benign. We are a leading insurer of US hospitals and hospital systems, with a strong focus on the best managed institutions. Extensive claims data is a significant asset in pricing these risks accurately and our database is one of the most extensive in existence, covering more than 455,000 claims.
In 2011, we insured a quarter of the top hospitals in the US as ranked by Healthgrades, the leading independent healthcare ratings company. We are increasingly providing insurance to comparably well managed institutions outside the US, particularly in Europe. Our miscellaneous medical business, although far smaller in premium terms, is a major growth area (see case study).
Healthcare providers are vulnerable to another risk that is a major specialist focus of Beazley – data breaches. In October we were selected by UHC, an alliance of America's leading non-profit academic medical centres, as the preferred cyber liability insurer for UHC's 114 academic medical centres and 255 affiliate hospitals. Beazley Breach Response, our flagship product, will be offered to all UHC members.
Outside the United States, we have continued to develop niche markets where our underwriting expertise and high service standards give us a competitive advantage. In India we are a leading insurer of business processing outsourcing firms, to which we are increasingly offering three-in-one policies combining D&O, EPL, and errors and omissions (E&O) cover. In France, we see significant growth potential in a number of lines and are strengthening our underwriting and business development capabilities. And our environmental risks team has provided high level excess protection for parent and holding companies with global portfolios, after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill revealed the range of suppliers that could potentially be implicated in the wake of major pollution events.
Beazley maintained its track record of unbroken profitability despite the worst ever year of insured natural catastrophes.
Martin Bride Finance director
| 2011 | 2010 | Movement | |
|---|---|---|---|
| \$m | \$m | % | |
| Gross premiums written | 1,712.5 | 1,741.6 | (2%) |
| Net premiums written | 1,374.0 | 1,402.1 | (2%) |
| Net earned premiums | 1,385.0 | 1,405.2 | (1%) |
| Net investment income | 39.3 | 37.5 | 5% |
| Other income | 28.1 | 28.1 | – |
| Revenue | 1,452.4 | 1,470.8 | (1%) |
| Net insurance claims | 850.5 | 738.2 | 15% |
| Acquisition and administrative expenses | 517.3 | 500.6 | 3% |
| One-off foreign exchange gain* | – | (33.7) | – |
| Foreign exchange loss/(gain) | 4.1 | (0.9) | – |
| Expenses | 1,371.9 | 1,204.2 | 14% |
| Share of loss of associate | (1.0) | (0.9) | 11% |
| Finance costs | (16.8) | (14.9) | 13% |
| Profit before tax | 62.7 | 250.8 | (75%) |
| Income tax credit/(expense) | 3.1 | (33.8) | – |
| Profit after tax | 65.8 | 217.0 | (70%) |
| Claims ratio | 62% | 52% | – |
| Expense ratio | 37% | 36% | – |
| Combined ratio | 99% | 88% | – |
| Rate increase/(reduction) | 1% | (2%) | – |
| Investment return | 1.0% | 1.0% | – |
*The \$33.7m non-recurring foreign exchange gain in 2010 arose as a result of the decision to more closely match our regulatory capital position in US dollars prior to the change in our functional currency from Sterling to US dollars.
Gross premiums written have reduced by 2% in 2011 to \$1,712.5m. However, rates on renewal business on average increased by 1% across the portfolio. We have continued to adjust our underwriting appetite in areas where competition is most intense.
The balance of our business has remained broadly unchanged from 2011. We continue to operate a diversified portfolio by type of business and geographical location, and have sought out new opportunities in 2011 to complement our existing books of business. In April 2011 we announced our acquisition of two Australian disability insurance managing general agents: Australian Income Protection and Blue-GUM Special Risks. This acquisition has made a \$10.1m contribution to our full year premiums written via our Lloyd's platform and will significantly add to our Australian business and our life, accident and health portfolio. In addition we have set up a life, accident and health business operation in Minneapolis, Minnesota, writing admitted business through our US insurance company, Beazley Insurance Company Inc.
The charts above highlight how we achieve diversification by product mix, geography and type of business.
Retention of business from existing brokers and clients is a key feature of Beazley's strategy. It enables us to maintain a deep understanding of our clients' businesses and requirements, affording greater insight into the risks involved in each policy we write and enabling us to price risk most accurately to achieve profit. The table below shows our retention rates by division compared to 2010.
| Retention rates* | 2011 | 2010 |
|---|---|---|
| Life, accident and health | 85% | 83% |
| Marine | 84% | 78% |
| Political risks and contingency | 64% | 60% |
| Property | 72% | 73% |
| Reinsurance | 90% | 93% |
| Specialty lines | 82% | 84% |
| Overall | 80% | 80% |
* Based on premiums due for renewal in each calendar year.
Premium rates charged for renewal business increased by 1% during 2011 across the portfolio (2010: a decrease of 2%). The largest rate changes were seen within our catastrophe-exposed classes; reinsurance (3% increase) and property (3% increase). Life, accident and health saw a 1% rate increase, whilst political risks and contingency and specialty lines had a 1% decrease and marine was unchanged. Market conditions remain competitive across the portfolio.
Rate change Cumulative renewal rate changes since 2001* (%)
The amount the group spent on reinsurance in 2011 was \$338.5m (2010: \$339.5m). The slight decrease was due to the group ceasing to underwrite admitted commercial property business in the US and accordingly no purchase of external reinsurance for this business was made. The only significant new reinsurance purchased was the professions' aggregate excess of loss cover which protects the group against an unexpected increase in the frequency of losses across most of the specialty lines business.
Reinsurance is purchased for a number of reasons:
The combined ratio of an insurance company is a measure of its operating performance and represents the ratio of its total costs (including claims and expenses) to total net earned premium. Consistent delivery of operating performance across the market cycle is clearly a key objective for an insurer. Beazley's combined ratio has increased in 2011 to 99% (2010: 88%). This increase was driven by the cost of catastrophes in 2011; nevertheless a combined ratio of below 100% is a notable achievement under these circumstances and demonstrates the value in our diversified operating model in challenging years. It is worth pointing out that the calculation of the combined ratio for Beazley includes all claims and other costs to the group but excludes foreign exchange gains or losses. We believe this represents the most transparent and useful measure of operating performance as it ensures that all of the costs of being in business are captured, whether directly linked to underwriting activity or not.
2011 saw an unusually large incidence of natural catastrophes resulting in significant market losses. The group was impacted by the catastrophe losses in the first quarter of 2011 in Japan, New Zealand and Australia. Taken together with the US tornadoes in April and May, we reported catastrophe losses of \$183m in the first half of 2011.
Political unrest in Libya led to losses in the first half in political risks. Despite this, the political risks and contingency division recorded a combined ratio of 79%, which was achieved following the first recoveries on the 2008 political losses. The second half of the year saw loss activity continue with hurricane Irene and flooding in Thailand. We incurred minor losses as a result of hurricane Irene and we estimate the cost of Thailand to be \$42m. Thanks to a \$10m improvement in the estimate for the previously reported losses, this brings the total for these catastrophe events to \$215m in 2011.
These losses have affected our reinsurance and property divisions and, to a lesser extent, the political risks and contingency division.
Our investments in our claims infrastructure will enable us to work closely with our clients and insureds to ensure claims are handled in an efficient and timely manner and to enable affected communities to start to rebuild.
Losses from 2010, including the earthquakes in Chile and New Zealand have developed well and contributed positively to prior year reserve releases during 2011.
Beazley has a consistent reserving philosophy with initial reserves being set to include risk margins that may be released over time as and when any uncertainty reduces. Historically these margins have given rise to held reserves within the range 5-10% above the actuarial estimate. We continue to maintain our reserve strength across the portfolio at 7.4% (2010: 7.9%).
Reserve monitoring is performed at a quarterly 'peer review', which involves a challenge process contrasting the claims reserves of underwriters and claim managers, who make detailed claim-by-claim assessments, and the actuarial team, who provide statistical analysis. This process allows early identification of areas where claims reserves may need adjustment.
During 2011 we were able to make the following prior year reserve adjustments across divisions, with the overall net impact being an increased release to the group.
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| \$m | \$m | |
| Life, accident and health | 4.5 | (1.3) |
| Marine | 39.9 | 30.7 |
| Political risks and contingency | 22.1 | 18.8 |
| Property | 20.2 | 17.4 |
| Reinsurance | 38.0 | 22.1 |
| Specialty lines | 61.8 | 56.9 |
| Total | 186.5 | 144.6 |
| Releases as a percentage of net earned premium | 13.5% | 10.3% |
Reserve releases increased slightly on specialty lines, reflecting the continuing satisfactory development of the significant volumes of business underwritten over the last ten years. The releases in 2011 came mainly from the 2003 through 2006 underwriting years, reinforcing that they are exceptionally profitable.
The political risks and contingency reserve releases continued, with the 2010 underwriting year in particular developing well. Marine reserve releases rose significantly, with the relatively benign 2009 underwriting year dominating.
The reinsurance and property releases increased with favourable development of past catastrophe events and the utilisation of earned catastrophe reserves offsetting the cost of the events of 2011.
Refer to note 24 for more details on the treatment of the claims related to 2011 catastrophe events.
Business acquisition costs and administrative expenses increased to \$517.3m from \$500.6m in 2010. The breakdown of these costs is shown below:
| Total acquisition costs and administrative expenses | 517.3 | 500.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Administrative expenses | 126.6 | 119.2 |
| Total acquisition costs | 390.7 | 381.4 |
| Other acquisition costs | 91.4 | 88.5 |
| Brokerage costs | 299.3 | 292.9 |
| \$m | \$m | |
| 2011 | 2010 |
Brokerage costs are the premium commissions paid to insurance intermediaries for providing business. As a percentage of net earned premium they remain between 21% and 22%. Brokerage costs are deferred and expensed over the life of the associated premiums in accordance with accounting guidelines.
Other acquisition costs comprise costs that have been identified as being directly related to underwriting activity (eg underwriters' salaries and Lloyd's box rental). These costs are also deferred in line with premium earning patterns.
Administrative expenses comprise primarily IT costs, facilities costs, Lloyd's central costs and other support costs. These increased in 2011, the main reason being that a large proportion of the group's expenses are in sterling and on average sterling was stronger against the US dollar in 2011 compared to 2010.
Investment income for the year ended 31 December 2011 was \$39.3m, or an annualised return of 1.0%, compared with \$37.5m or 1.0% over the same period in 2010.
Investment conditions continued to be difficult over the course of the year. Financial markets experienced elevated levels of volatility as the effects of global overleveraging continued to manifest themselves via the European sovereign debt crisis. This issue, coupled with the relatively lacklustre levels of global growth, contributed to interest rate levels falling further from already record low levels – providing some boost to short-term returns, but decreasing the outlook for future returns.
In this environment the investment strategy focused on containing potential downside, whilst working to target absolute returns above short-term treasury bills. We have paid particular attention to avoiding risks arising from the eurozone crisis, primarily those arising from peripheral sovereign debt as well as from the overall banking sector. Our eurozone sovereign bond exposures are restricted to Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
The strategy continues to be implemented together with Falcon Money Management Limited, our associated company, and is unchanged from last year. Our core portfolio, which amounted to 89.7% of fixed income investments, continues to be primarily allocated to core sovereign, supranational and agency debt whilst retaining elevated levels of cash. We have marginally increased our allocations to US non-financial corporate and asset-backed credits to take advantage of wider spreads in the latter part of the year. Duration of the portfolio as at the year end was 1.3 years (2010: 12 months) with a yield to maturity of 0.8% (2010: 0.7%). Our decision late in 2010 to increase and maintain duration worked well as interest rates fell further during 2011. The investment committee does expect to further extend the duration of assets to more closely match liabilities in the future. The balance of our investments remains invested in a diversified portfolio of capital growth assets with a focus on delivering absolute investment returns.
Comparison of returns – major asset classes (\$m)
The table below details the breakdown of our portfolio by asset class:
| 31 Dec 2011 | 31 Dec 2010 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| \$m | % | \$m | % | ||
| Cash and cash equivalents | 650 | 16.2 | 745 | 19.4 | |
| Government, agency and supranational | 2,004 | 50.0 | 1,731 | 45.0 | |
| AAA | 493 | 12.3 | 646 | 16.9 | |
| AA+ to AA- | 121 | 3.0 | 157 | 4.1 | |
| A+ to A- | 237 | 6.0 | 113 | 2.9 | |
| BBB+ to BBB- | 86 | 2.1 | 17 | 0.4 | |
| Derivative financial assets | 5 | 0.1 | – | – | |
| Core portfolio | 3,596 | 89.7 | 3,409 | 88.7 | |
| Capital growth assets | 411 | 10.3 | 433 | 11.3 | |
| Total | 4,007 | 100.0 | 3,842 | 100.0 |
Comparison of return by major asset class:
| 31 Dec 2011 | 31 Dec 2010 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| \$m | % | \$m | % | ||
| Core portfolio | 45.1 | 1.3 | 17.0 | 0.5 | |
| Capital growth assets | (5.8) | (1.4) | 20.5 | 5.8 | |
| Overall return | 39.3 | 1.0 | 37.5 | 1.0 |
The funds managed by the Beazley group have grown by 4% in 2011, with financial assets of \$4,006.9m at the end of the year (2010: \$3,842.3m). The chart above shows the increase in our group funds since 2003.
Beazley is liable to corporation tax in a number of jurisdictions, notably the UK and Ireland. Our effective tax rate is thus a composite tax rate between the Irish and UK tax rates.
In 2011, the UK corporation tax rate was reduced from 27% to 25%. This 2% reduction in the UK tax rate has been applied to our UK deferred tax liability brought forward. This reduction in our deferred tax liability has offset our current tax charge to create an effective tax rate of (5%) for the year.
| 2011 | 2010 | Movement | |
|---|---|---|---|
| \$m | \$m | % | |
| Intangible assets | 130.7 | 117.0 | 12% |
| Reinsurance assets | 1,197.9 | 1,034.9 | 16% |
| Insurance receivables | 558.7 | 527.1 | 6% |
| Other assets | 224.5 | 253.0 | (11%) |
| Financial assets and cash and cash equivalents | 4,006.9 | 3,842.3 | 4% |
| Total assets | 6,118.7 | 5,774.3 | 6% |
| Insurance liabilities | 4,334.6 | 4,046.8 | 7% |
| Financial liabilities | 266.9 | 268.2 | – |
| Other liabilities | 446.2 | 376.4 | 19% |
| Total liabilities | 5,047.7 | 4,691.4 | 8% |
| Net assets | 1,071.0 | 1,082.9 | (1%) |
| Net assets per share (cents) | 211.7c | 214.6c | (1%) |
| Net tangible assets per share (cents) | 185.9c | 191.4c | (3%) |
| Net assets per share (pence) | 137.6p | 139.5p | (1%) |
| Net tangible assets per share (pence) | 120.8p | 124.4p | (3%) |
| Number of shares* | 505.9m | 504.6m | – |
*Excludes shares held in the employee share trust and treasury shares.
Intangible assets consist of goodwill on acquisitions of \$72.3m and renewal rights of \$16.3m, purchased syndicate capacity of \$10.8m, US admitted licences of \$9.3m and capitalised expenditure on IT projects of \$22.0m. The increase in intangibles is primarily due to the acquisition of AIP in Australia for \$20.6m, this included deferred consideration. We also acquired additional syndicate capacity of \$1.4m, taking the split of business between syndicates 2623 and 623 to 82%:18% for 2012. This was offset by a decrease of \$8.6m as we disposed of a business. As part of the sale agreement we secured the renewal rights for this business for the next five years, accordingly we have capitalised this asset as renewal rights within intangible assets.
Reinsurance assets represent recoveries from reinsurers in respect of incurred claims of \$995.7m, and the unearned reinsurance premiums reserve of \$202.2m. The reinsurance receivables from reinsurers are split between recoveries on claims paid or notified of \$252.4m and an actuarial estimate of recoveries on claims that have not yet been reported of \$743.3m. The group's exposure to reinsurers is managed through:
We continue to provide against impairment of reinsurance recoveries, and at the end of 2011 we had provided \$15.7m (2010: \$17.3m) in respect of reinsurance recoveries.
Insurance receivables are amounts receivable from brokers in respect of premiums written. The balance at 31 December 2011 was \$558.7m, an increase of 6% over 2010 (\$527.1m). We continue to outsource the collection of our Lloyd's premium broker balances to Randall and Quilter Investment Holdings plc, which operates within the Lloyd's market as specialist credit controllers.
Other assets are analysed separately in the notes to the accounts. The largest items included comprise:
Insurance liabilities of \$4,334.6m consist of two main elements, being the unearned premium reserve (UPR) and gross insurance claims liabilities.
Our unearned premiums reserve has reduced by 2% to \$808.4m. The majority of the UPR balance relates to current year premiums that have been deferred and will be earned in future periods. Current indicators are that this business is profitable.
Gross insurance claims reserves are made up of claims which have been notified to us but not yet paid and an estimate of claims incurred but not yet reported (IBNR). These are estimated as part of the quarterly reserving process involving the underwriters and group actuary. Gross insurance claims reserves have increased by 9% to \$3,526.2m.
Financial liabilities comprise borrowings and derivative financial liabilities. The group utilises two long-term debt facilities:
In July 2011 we renewed and extended our existing syndicated short-term banking facility led by Lloyds Banking Group Plc. The facility provides potential borrowings up to \$225m. The new agreement is based on a commitment fee of 0.7% per annum and any amounts drawn are charged at a margin of 1.75% per annum. The cash element of the facility will last for three years, expiring on 31 December 2014, whilst letters of credit issued under the facility can be used to provide support for the 2012 and 2013 underwriting years. The facility is currently unutilised.
The information on this page forms an integral part of the audited financial statements.
Beazley has a number of requirements for capital at a group and subsidiary level. Capital is primarily required to support underwriting at Lloyd's and in the US and is subject to prudential regulation by local regulators (FSA, Lloyd's, Central Bank of Ireland, and the US state level supervisors).
Further capital requirements come from rating agencies on a groupwide basis and for Beazley Insurance Company Inc. and the Lloyd's syndicates on a standalone basis. In both cases we aim to manage our capital to obtain a financial 'A' rating from the rating agencies for these entities.
Beazley holds a level of capital over and above its regulatory requirements and targets a level of surplus capital that would enable it to take advantage of new underwriting opportunities such as the acquisition of insurance companies or managing general agents (MGAs) whose strategic goals are aligned with our own.
The group actively seeks to manage its capital base to target capital levels. Our preferred use of capital is to deploy it on opportunities to underwrite profitably. However there may be times in the cycle when the company will generate excess capital and not have the opportunity to deploy it. If such a point were reached the board would consider returning capital to shareholders.
In 2011 Beazley acquired 0.7m of its own shares. These were acquired at an average price of 117.4p and the cost to the group was \$1.2m.
Our funding comes from a mixture of our own equity of \$1,071.0m alongside £150m of tier 2 subordinated debt and \$18m subordinated long-term debt and an undrawn banking facility of \$225m mentioned above. This facility was renewed in July 2011 to cover the 2012 and 2013 underwriting years and converted to a \$225m facility.
The following table sets out the group's sources and uses of capital:
| 2011 \$m |
2010 \$m |
|
|---|---|---|
| Sources of funds | ||
| Shareholders' funds | 1,071.0 | 1,082.9 |
| Tier 2 subordinated debt | 231.0 | 230.8 |
| Long-term subordinated debt | 18.0 | 18.0 |
| 1,320.0 | 1,331.7 | |
| Uses of funds | ||
| Lloyd's underwriting | 742.9 | 776.9 |
| Capital for US insurance company | 107.7 | 107.7 |
| 850.6 | 884.6 | |
| Surplus | 469.4 | 447.1 |
| Unavailable surplus* | (129.5) | (80.2) |
| Fixed and intangible assets | (137.8) | (126.6) |
| Available surplus | 202.1 | 240.3 |
| Unutilised banking facility | 225.0 | 150.0 |
* Unavailable surplus primarily represents profits earned that have not yet been transferred from the Lloyd's syndicates. The cash transfers occur half-yearly in arrears and are reflected as unavailable until the cash is received into Beazley corporate accounts. In addition certain items other than fixed and intangible assets such as deferred tax assets are not immediately realisable as cash and have also accordingly been reflected as unavailable surplus.
The group is required to produce an individual capital assessment (ICA) which sets out the amount of capital that is required to reflect the risks contained within the business. Lloyd's reviews this assessment to ensure that ICAs are consistent across the market.
In order to determine the ICA, we have made significant investments in both models and process:
The decrease in our funds at Lloyd's from £505.0m to £482.9m in spite of the broadly unchanged level of premium reflects the changes in our reinsurance programmes (particularly the professions programme) and the increased duration on our bond portfolio. These numbers are presented in the table on the previous page in US dollars, being \$742.9m and \$776.9m for 2011 and 2010 respectively, which have been translated at the spot exchange rate at reporting dates.
Solvency II is a proposed EU-wide legislation on capital adequacy and risk management for all insurers. The central elements of Solvency II are:
Beazley has set two guiding principles for Solvency II, namely:
Beazley's dedicated project management team and subject matter experts have continued throughout 2011 to build the framework required to make Beazley Solvency II compliant. The Solvency II internal model, which calculates our solvency capital requirements based on Beazley's risk profile in line with the new principles, was built and tested. The internal model has incorporated new design characteristics which increase the level of sophistication and granularity. The Solvency II Final Application Pack for the syndicates was submitted to Lloyd's on 16 December 2011, containing our estimated capital requirements under the new regime, as well as detailed information on the status of the programme and the activities remaining to be completed in order to reach the full Solvency II standard. The team also completed a comprehensive training programme tailored to educate all our staff on their specific knowledge requirements as well as what business as usual will look like under Solvency II.
Our objective for 2012 is to complete our outstanding activities in line with the Lloyd's plan and to embed the model and the changes into the business. This will include going through a review process with the FSA in relation to the Lloyd's application, and with the Central Bank of Ireland to achieve Beazley Re model approval. We will also continue to take advantage of the benefits delivered by the programme, such as better management information and strengthened decision making.
The group operates across both Lloyd's and the US through a variety of legal entities and structures. The main entities within the legal entity structure are as follows:
Strength and efficiency of operations have never been so important.
Ian Fantozzi Chief operating officer
My aim is to ensure we have an efficient and cost effective operating platform that also provides readiness and scalability to support business growth. With this in mind, we continue to invest in our employee talent, technology, processing and physical infrastructure. We do this while keeping a close watch on our operational expense budget and routinely measuring the value that each support service or project brings.
As our business grows into new product lines and geographies, we place great emphasis on operating with consistency across the group. We promote core employee values, uphold groupwide standards in underwriting and claims processing, and leverage value from a core set of technology platforms. Not only does this consistency lead to increased efficiency and service levels, it helps to maintain visibility and control of operating risk.
Philippe Mazas, chief information officer, and the IT team have delivered a number of important projects in 2011 that provide technology platforms to support our growth initiatives. For our Lloyd's operation, we have successfully consolidated and upgraded legacy policy systems into one technology platform, called Synergy, and integrated to a group document management system. This has improved back-office efficiency by eliminating data rekeying, providing automation to support group underwriting standards and delivering management information into our strategic data analytics suite, named 'Beazley Intelligence'.
As well as providing management information on all Beazley Lloyd's policy transaction data, the Beazley Intelligence programme, led by Paolo Cuomo, now provides reports on our claims activity and on delegated underwriting. Having this single source of management information provides us with a competitive advantage by highlighting trends in underwriting performance, and identifying higher margin products where we should focus our growth. Beazley Intelligence has also played a vital role in supporting our Solvency II programme, with the implementation of a robust data quality governance framework.
Our new exposure management system is another source of competitive advantage, enabling us to report aggregated insurance exposures quickly and accurately, which is key to effective underwriting and claims management. The new system enables rapid identification of exposure to specific environmental, economic or political events to a higher level of precision.
In the US, we continue to support growth with our BeazleyPro system. During 2011, we delivered automated end-to-end quote and policy fulfilment to several product lines. Not only does this provide efficiency savings, it also enhances our ability to provide a highly responsive service to brokers as our business grows. Similarly, we are now supporting our growth in Europe with a new international underwriting platform which has already been deployed to our UK regional and Paris offices.
A key focus is to ensure that our back-office processing harnesses the economies that can be achieved through our increasing scale and geographical footprint. By this we mean making sure that processing is done by appropriately skilled people, at the most cost effective location, whilst providing the best service levels. To do this we make use of both outsource service providers and through centralised service centres. Over the last three years we have built a highly efficient transaction processing centre in Connecticut. Headed by Bryan Falchuk, this team continues to take on and refine the processing tasks to service both our US and London businesses.
As we expand globally, it is important to provide a high quality working environment that is conducive to team working. Our offices are open plan, bright and airy with a style and consistency that supports our global brand. We want to make our work space somewhere that our people want to be, and to provide meeting space in which brokers want to do business. Meeting this requirement is Beazley's commercial management team, which, under the leadership of Munira Hirji, strives to get the best quality offices at the best lease and facility cost. In support of our growth in Lloyd's, we recently signed the lease for an additional floor in our London office at Plantation Place.
In 2012, we will continue to invest in developing our talent, technology and infrastructure. We will also be reviewing the back-office processes that underpin our underwriting and claims management and seeking new ways to refine our service delivery and responsiveness to growth opportunities.
Each year, a core driver behind our planning for operational investment is the close review of the annual underwriting business plans. We believe this is vital to ensure tight alignment to the business direction for providing effective and responsive operational support.
With the platform we have developed and the plans for further investment, I feel confident that we have the strength and efficiency to support our ongoing profitability into 2012.
Challenging years, such as 2011, demonstrate the importance of having embedded an effective risk management culture throughout the business.
Andrew Pryde Chief risk officer
The past year saw the continuing evolution of both the risk management framework and the risk management function, with Andrew Pryde being appointed chief risk officer from 1 January 2011 as Nicholas Furlonge moved from director of risk to a nonexecutive director role in Beazley Furlonge Limited. The risk management function was appropriately resourced throughout 2011 with additional personnel recruited to ensure there is the appropriate combination of skills and experience for Beazley to operate in a Solvency II regulatory environment. To reflect the increasing size and importance of the US operations to the group, we now have two US based risk managers to ensure good risk management practices are embedded in all US operations.
A risk and regulatory committee was introduced at the beginning of 2011, meeting on a monthly basis throughout the year with immediate oversight of the risk management framework at Beazley. The members of this committee include the risk owners from across the business and are joined on a quarterly basis by three non-executive directors to provide independent challenge.
For much of 2011, the risk management team focused on refining the risk management framework which we established in 2010. This included working closely with all risk owners and control owners and developing a partnership model with our colleagues in the various business departments. Risk management and Solvency II training has been provided to all staff by way of a bespoke e-learning module. This training has been supplemented for personnel with specific risk management responsibilities. Challenging years, such as 2011, demonstrate the importance of having embedded an effective risk management culture throughout the business. Important elements for 2011 were our diversified portfolio of insurance risks, executing on our cycle management expertise, employing a conservative investment strategy and operating a robust underwriting and claims control environment.
The risk management function has developed and implemented risk management software tailored specifically to meet our needs. This has accelerated and built resilience into the reporting timetable and has enabled the team to provide a consolidated assurance report to executive management on a monthly basis and our boards on a quarterly basis.
A key theme for the risk management function in 2011 was to implement timely and trusted risk management reports. In addition to the monthly consolidated assurance report, the risk management function provided an emerging and strategic risk report for the board strategy day in May, developed risk profiles throughout 2011 on emerging risks and presented a full year's cycle of quarterly Own Risk and Solvency Assessment (ORSA) reports, which have been used by our boards to assist with their oversight and decision making responsibilities. The ORSA is a key requirement of Solvency II and uses output from both the risk management framework, which provides the qualitative aspects, and the internal model, which provides the quantitative aspects. It demonstrates the link between these two elements, showing they are of consistent design, with feedback loops between the two processes.
An important feature of the internal model that is used to establish capital is the objective and transparent link between actions taken by underwriters and the capital estimated and allocated to the underwriting teams. This means that the business is more comfortable using the internal model as part of its decision making. In 2011, this concept has been extended to operational risk. Therefore, as the control environment strengthens there is an objective link to reduce the capital estimated. Similarly, if the control environment weakens, the capital estimated increases, which reinforces the strong risk management culture.
The top three risks to the group remain relatively static, and are common to many of our peers. These are underwriting and reserving risks (specifically, systematically mispricing across a number of years), catastrophe risk and asset risk. At a high level, the continued soft insurance market caused in part by the availability of capacity, the number of catastrophe losses reported in the year and the continued uncertainty surrounding the global economy and financial markets are the factors that underlie these risks.
We remain on track to meet the regulator's timetable for the implementation of Solvency II. Despite the expected postponement of the implementation of this regulation until at least January 2014, we are pursuing the initial timetable. This will ensure that we are compliant with the regulations by January 2013, at the latest.
The resourcing of the risk management function will also remain under review in 2012, to ensure the right balance of skills and experience is in place to manage our risk environment.
The risk management framework describes how risk is managed at Beazley as illustrated by the diagram below. The framework includes a risk register that captures the risk universe (using eight risk categories and 53 risk events), the risk appetite set by the Beazley plc board and controls that are operated by the business to remain within this risk appetite.
Our risk management framework operates under the principle of the three lines of defence: namely business risk management, the risk management function and the internal audit function. Within business risk management, there are three defined roles: namely risk owner, control owner and control reporter. Each risk event is owned by the risk owner who is a member of the executive committee. Risk owners, supported by the risk management team, formally perform a risk assessment twice a year, including an assessment of emerging risk.
A software tool is used to manage the operation of the control environment and the control performance is recorded in this risk register by the control reporter. The risk management function uses the data in the risk register to provide a suite of risk management reports to the boards and committees that will assist the senior and executive management to discharge its decision making responsibilities.
The internal audit function uses the risk management framework to develop its annual risk-based audit plan. The plan is based on, among other factors, the inherent and residual risk scores as captured in the risk register. Finally, a feedback loop operates with recommendations from the internal audit reviews being assessed by the risk management function for inclusion in the risk register as appropriate.
The Beazley plc board has developed high-level risk appetite statements for each of the eight risk categories. From these qualitative statements, a quantitative risk appetite has been developed for each of the 53 risk events to manage short term risk, which is expressed as acceptable earnings volatility at a 1:10 likelihood. Defining risk appetite at this level of detail allows a natural cascade across the group to help the business understand what is required to operate within the board's risk appetite. The board has approved the risk appetite for 2012 which, for the large part, remains unchanged from 2011. For the insurance category, the Beazley plc board has also established a risk appetite to manage risk at more extreme durations, for example, at the 1:250 likelihood for catastrophe risk as described on pages 94 and 95.
We track risk in the following eight risk categories, across which a total of 53 risk events have been identified. Each risk event is reported to a specific oversight committee to assist them perform their first line of defence obligations. All risk events are reported to the risk and regulatory committee, the audit committees and the boards.
| Risk category | Risk definition | Committee |
|---|---|---|
| Insurance risk | The risk arising from the inherent uncertainties about the occurrence, amount and timing of insurance premium and claim liabilities. |
Underwriting committee |
| Asset risk | The risk arising from adverse financial market movements of values of investments, interest rates, exchange rates, or external market forces. |
Investment committee |
| Operational risk | The risk arising from inadequate or failed internal or external processes, people and systems. |
Underwriting, Investment, Beazley shared services and Executive committees |
| Credit risk | The risk of failure of another party to perform its financial or contractual obligations to the group in a timely manner. |
Underwriting committee |
| Group risk | The contagion risk that an action or inaction of one part of the group will adversely affect another part or parts. In addition, the risk of dilution of culture and negative impact on brand. |
Executive committee |
| Regulatory and legal risk | The risk arising from not complying with regulatory and legal requirements. |
Executive committee |
| Liquidity risk | The risk from not having available (or access to) the correct level of financial resources to meet obligations. |
Investment committee |
| Strategic risk | The risk of ineffective strategic direction. | Executive committee |
As an insurer we can exert a strong beneficial influence by promoting effective risk management. We see a clear correlation between forward-looking businesses that have such controls in place and businesses that are good corporate citizens.
Corporate social responsibility at Beazley has two main dimensions: how we conduct our own business and how we influence our clients in the conduct of theirs. Below we describe the measures we took in 2011 to ensure that as a company we met our responsibilities. But as an insurer we can also exert a strong beneficial influence by promoting effective risk management. We see a clear correlation between forward-looking businesses that have such controls in place and businesses that are good corporate citizens.
In continuing to build Beazley as a premier risk-taking business, we take our corporate, social and environmental responsibility seriously. We constantly consider the ethical implications of how we operate and put policies and procedures in place to sustain our commitment.
Intrinsic to our culture is an ethical approach to business conducted by and towards all our stakeholders. The values that form the essence of our brand and our working culture are professionalism, integrity, effectiveness and dynamism. Our code of ethics comprises the staff handbook, the handling of personal data, whistle blowing, and financial crime policies. Our conflicts of interest policy provides clear guidance to staff on areas such as inducements and handling sensitive data.
We are an equal opportunities employer and make it our policy to offer equal treatment to employees and prospective employees, ensuring that all are treated fairly and with dignity and respect. We do not permit unlawful discrimination of any kind against any person on the grounds of gender, race, nationality or ethnic origin, age, disability, religious beliefs, sexuality, marital status, working patterns or pregnancy.
We are committed to taking positive action to ensure that all employees receive equality of opportunity in recruitment, training, development, promotion and remuneration.
We strive to ensure the health, safety and welfare of our employees and anyone else who may be affected by our operations. Employees are expected to take reasonable care of their own health and safety at work as well as those of others, and to co-operate with management to create a safe and healthy working environment. All employees, contractors and visitors are subject to induction, training and supervision in aspects of health and safety and additional training in ergonomics and fire safety awareness is provided to all employees. All health and safety matters are communicated via notice boards, email memos, the intranet and safety representatives. Overall responsibility for health and safety at Beazley rests with the chief operations officer of the group, Ian Fantozzi.
We believe that the knowledge and skills of our employees are a key element of organisational success and we therefore invest in training and development. Expanding this knowledge and skills is the focus of our 'managing for performance' strategic initiative, which has now been running for three years. We ensure that training is accessible by everyone and recognised as a shared responsibility between individual employees and the organisation. Responsibility for the provision of training and development sits with the head of talent management, Penny Malik. In 2011 we introduced a number of activities with direct executive involvement and sponsorship, reinforcing the importance placed upon training and development throughout the group.
Employees are kept informed of developments in our business through internal communications including formal company-wide briefings that occur twice a month, team meetings, monthly emails updating employees on our strategic initiatives, and an information-rich intranet.
Communication is a two way process. We conduct a detailed annual leadership survey that provides managers, team leaders and senior executives with valuable feedback. In 2011, we participated in the Great Places to Work survey, the world's largest employee engagement programme, which put us among the top 50 companies in the UK for pay and benefits, but identified opportunities for improvement in team coordination and opportunities for recognition. We plan to run this survey biennially. We are proud of our working culture that ensures we achieve our aim to attract, reward and retain talented staff in competitive markets and support and develop them as they strive to perform to an excellent standard.
We encourage employee involvement in a range of community programmes across the group and each employee can take up to two days per year to participate in charitable and local community initiatives. We liaise closely with the Lloyd's Community Programme (LCP) and encourage staff to get involved in helping pupils in schools in the Tower Hamlets area, one of the most deprived areas in the country. Beazley is involved in two schemes on a weekly basis – reading and number partners. During 2011, we had 15 volunteers participating in this very successful scheme at Canon Barnett school in Aldgate and we are targeting 25 readers for 2012. We also had 14 volunteers participating in a student mentoring programme, piloted last year.
Teams are encouraged to get involved with local charities as part of their annual away days. In the UK, 61 members of staff participated in a 'helping hands' volunteering day, coordinated through the LCP. In the US we coordinated our efforts on a national scale: our offices participated in a Beazley Week of Service between September 12 and 16, organising volunteer activities with the charity Feeding America to help food banks sort, evaluate and package donated food.
In 2012, a financial literacy workshop for pupils at Canon Barnett will be held in conjunction with Lloyd's. Andrew Horton is participating with other Beazley volunteers. The workshop is based on the 'How the Real World Works' book series, which included a book written by children about Lloyd's.
We made total charitable donations during 2011 of \$167,702. In the UK, we made charitable donations during the year ended 31 December 2011 of £57,475 (2010: £56,265). The UK charity budget is managed by a charity committee chaired by Jonathan Gray and consideration is given to a wide range of activities, particularly where members of staff are engaged in fund raising activities. We support three chosen charities to which the committee donates an annual payment, Rwanda Aid (international), Concordia (local) and Trees for Cities (ecological); as well as supporting our staff in fundraising for their chosen charities. We have sponsored 24 of our staff with £13,475 and in return they have raised a total of over £50,000 for their selected charities. Events that were completed included the Three Peaks challenge, skydiving, and the Paris Marathon. At the latter alone over £16,000 was raised for Macmillan Cancer Nurses.
We run a payroll-giving scheme in the UK in association with the Charities Aid Foundation. In the year to 1 October 2011, 27 employees took part, donating £42,488 to 33 charities.
Our US charity committee is chaired by Judy Patterson. Again, consideration is given to a wide range of activities, especially where members of staff are actively involved in fund raising themselves. During the year ended 31 December 2011, \$75,000 was donated to various charities, notably Susan G. Koman for the Cure (breast cancer) and Feeding America.
No political donations were made by the group in either the current or prior reporting period.
Beazley strives to achieve environmental best practices in the management of its global offices and in the acquisition of its goods and services. Beazley's commercial management team is responsible for Beazley's global offices and for the procurement of goods and services.
In the procurement area we pursue the following best practices:
Progress achieved in 2011 is illustrated below:
Beazley submitted case studies to Climatewise detailing the environmental measures taken at Beazley. Commercial management (CM) produced a report which indicated a 5.75% emissions reduction based on Scope 1 and Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions.
The three largest US offices, where more than 60% of our employees are located, were measured and data compared against 2009 (the first year US data was captured). There was a 5% increase in emissions compared to 2009 data which was due to increased business travel as the US business expanded.
As reported to ClimateWise, we installed new air conditioning units in the datacentre in the head office in London. These new units are more energy-efficient to operate and reduce the loss of air (and hence emissions) which occurred with the older units.
We track and report on the number of employees who choose to voluntarily downgrade their business flights from a higher class of services permitted under Beazley's travel policy. These voluntary downgrades result in a decreased carbon footprint for each such employee. During the course of 2011, 149 employees opted to downgrade their flight status.
All our offices are equipped with video conferencing capability. We have been using video conferencing for over five years and employees are encouraged to utilise video conferencing, thereby reducing the necessity of business travel.
We receive monthly reports from our UK and US office and stationery suppliers on the environmental impact of using recyclable / FCS paper. In addition to these reports showing us how our buying selections impact the environment, we also monitor our carbon footprint using various metrics including the number of trees saved and the quantity of electricity saved. Throughout all UK offices and our three main US offices, duplex (double-sided) printing is enabled on all copiers/printers and measures are underway to extend this to all other US offices.
We endeavour to use the same couriers and service companies as other tenants in the head office building in London to reduce the carbon footprint of vehicles coming into and out of London. Beazley UK also uses Climatecars as a preferred car transportation company. Climatecars entire fleet of cars consist of hybrid/energy efficient vehicles. Beazley US does not use a company-wide car service. Employees are encouraged to use public transportation.
We have, wherever possible, adopted the use of glasses and crockery in place of paper/plastic products. In the UK and some US offices, we provide filtered water and refillable glass water bottles in place of bottled water. This results in less consumption of paper and plastic products, cost savings, and less waste. In most of our UK offices and newer US offices, there are light sensors and/or timed lighting, as well as low-flush toilets. Newer US offices have automatic water faucets in the bathrooms. The London office uses a green electric supply provider. (This is not possible in the US, where electricity is municipally provided.)
Whenever possible, we select furniture for our offices which is made of recycled material, which can be recycled at the end-of-lifecycle. We take into consideration all environmental aspects when building and setting up new office space worldwide and seeks to make environmentally responsible choices whenever possible.
We continue to participate in the ClimateWise programme and, for 2012, are joining Heart of the City, an organisation dedicated to enabling businesses in the City of London to learn from one another how best to develop voluntary and socially responsible programmes in the community.
Andrew Horton Andrew Horton (aged 49) was appointed chief executive on 1st September 2008. Previously he was finance director and he joined the board in June 2003. Prior to that, he was UK chief financial officer at ING and was deputy global chief financial officer and global head of finance for the equity markets division of ING Barings, having held various financial positions with ING Barings since January 1997. He qualified as a chartered accountant with Coopers and Lybrand in 1987.
Martin Bride Martin Bride (aged 48) is group finance director having joined Beazley in 2009. Martin has 26 years experience in the insurance industry with more than half of those as a finance director. He trained as a general insurance actuary before pursuing a career in the composite insurance sector with Aviva and Zurich Financial Services. His experience spans personal and commercial lines general insurance, the London market, life insurance and asset management in both the UK and France.
Adrian Cox Adrian Cox (aged 40) was appointed to the board on 6 December 2010 and heads up the specialty lines division. Prior to joining Beazley in June 2001, Adrian was at General Cologne Re for eight years. He began his career writing short-tail facultative reinsurance before moving to the treaty department in 1997, where he wrote both short and long tail business, specialising in financial lines.
Jonathan Gray Jonathan Gray (aged 58) is the head of the group's property division. Jonathan has 35 years of experience at Lloyd's, joining Beazley in 1992. He is an active underwriter in his area of expertise, open market commercial property risks.
Neil Maidment Neil Maidment (aged 49) is the chief underwriting officer of the group. Neil has 27 years of Lloyd's experience. He joined Beazley in 1990 and was appointed to the board in 1993. In 2011 he was elected to the board of the Lloyd's Market Association.
Clive Washbourn Clive Washbourn (aged 51) is the head of the group's marine division. Clive has over 25 years experience in the marine insurance industry and actively underwrites marine hull, marine liability and marine war risks. He is a member of the LMA Marine Committee and chairman of the Joint War Committee.
Jonathan Agnew Jonathan Agnew (aged 70) is the chairman of the company. Jonathan was formerly a managing director of Morgan Stanley and subsequently the chief executive of Kleinwort Benson. He has been the chairman of Limit plc, Gerrard Group plc, Nationwide Building Society and LMS Capital plc. He is currently chairman of Ashmore Global Opportunities Limited and The Cayenne Trust plc and is senior independent director of Rightmove plc. He was a member of the Council of Lloyd's and of Lloyd's Market Board from 1995 to 1999.
George Blunden George Blunden (aged 59) was appointed on 1 January 2010. He is currently Chairman of Charity Bank and Chairman of Raglan HA. He retired as senior vice president and director from AllianceBernstein Ltd in December 2009. He had previously been chief executive of Union plc, a director of SG Warburg Securities, Seccombe, Marshall and Campion plc and Meridian Investment Performance Services.
Gordon Hamilton Gordon Hamilton (aged 66) retired as a senior audit partner in Deloitte & Touche LLP after more than 30 years, principally involved with listed multi-national company audits and major forensic assignments. He is currently a non-executive director of a number of companies including the South African listed Barloworld and the London listed Petra Diamonds and Northamber.
Dennis Holt Dennis Holt (aged 63) has more than 40 years experience in financial services markets. He was formerly a main board Executive Director at LloydsTSB (2000-2001), Chief Executive of AXA UK and a member of AXA's Global Executive Committee (2001- 2006). He has been a Vice Chairman of the Association of British Insurers and Deputy Chairman of Bank of Ireland. He is currently Chairman of Liverpool Victoria and of Bank of Ireland UK.
Padraic O'Connor Padraic O'Connor (aged 62) is Chairman of the Irish Stock Exchange and a non executive director of Rabobank, JP Morgan Bank Dublin Ltd and a number of other companies. He was Managing Director of NCB Group between 1991 and 1999 prior to which he was Chief Economist at the firm. Before joining NCB, Mr O'Connor worked at the Department of Finance and the Central Bank of Ireland. He holds primary and postgraduate degrees in economics from University College Dublin.
Vincent Sheridan Vincent Sheridan (aged 63) is currently a non-executive director of FBD Holdings Ltd, Mercer (Ireland) Limited, Canada Life Assurance Ireland Limited and a number of other companies. He retired as Chief Executive of Vhi Healthcare in 2008 and prior to that was Group Chief Executive of the Norwich Union Insurance Group in Ireland for ten years from 1991 to 2001. He is a past president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland and a former Director of the Irish Stock Exchange.
Ken Sroka
Ken Sroka (aged 58) was appointed to the board on 12 November 2010. He was formerly head of product development at Zurich Financial Services, retiring in 2008. During his 15 years at Zurich Financial Services, he created and directed Zurich's financial lines business in North America and more recently he focused on the development of specialist products in North America as president and CEO of Zurich North American Specialties Division (products included environmental, excess liability, professional liability, financial lines, healthcare, political risk and accident & health). Prior to joining Zurich in 1993, Mr Sroka's career included roles at Chubb, AIG and USF&G.
Rolf Tolle (aged 64) was appointed to the board on 6 December 2010. He joined the board of Beazley Furlonge Limited in June 2010. He retired as franchise performance director at Lloyd's in December 2008 after nearly seven years in the role, during which time he was widely credited for establishing a new and successful partnership between the Corporation of Lloyd's and the market. Prior to that, he served as chief underwriting officer of Faraday Group, General Re's Lloyd's insurance and reinsurance operation.
Governance
We place great importance on communication with shareholders. The full report and accounts and the interim report are available to shareholders on the company's website (www.beazley.com). A mailed copy of the accounts is also available on request. The company responds to individual letters from shareholders and maintains a separate investor relations centre within the existing www.beazley.com website as a repository for all investor relations matters.
Financial reporting for insurance companies can seem to be complex. In order to help shareholders and potential investors better understand the key drivers of the business and its prospects, we have endeavoured to provide increasing levels of transparency and explanation in our communications. As a result, in addition to enhancing the information contained in the annual and interim reports, the investor relations centre on the company website contains a substantial amount of relevant information for investors including key corporate data and news, presentations to analysts, information for the names' syndicate 623 and special purpose syndicate 6107, analyst estimates and a financial calendar. The website also gives investors the opportunity to sign up for an alert service as new information becomes available.
There is a regular dialogue with institutional shareholders as well as general presentations after the preliminary and interim results. The board is advised of any specific comments from institutional investors to enable it to develop an understanding of the views of major shareholders. All shareholders have the opportunity to put questions at the company's annual general meeting.
The company's shares are listed on the London Stock Exchange. Prices are given daily in newspapers including the Financial Times, The Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the Evening Standard.
There are currently 11 analysts publishing research notes on the group. In addition to research coverage from Numis and JP Morgan, the company's joint corporate broker, coverage is provided by RBS, Nomura, Keefe Bruyette & Woods, Peel Hunt, Deutsche Bank, Shore Capital, Espirito Santo Investment Bank Research, Collins Stewart and Edison Investment Research.
| Financial calendar | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| -------------------- | -- | -- | -- |
| 2 March 2012 | Second interim dividend record date |
|---|---|
| 27 March 2012 | Annual general meeting |
| 30 March 2012 | Second interim dividend payment date for the six months ended 31 December 2011 |
| 20 July 2012 | First interim dividend announcement for the six months ended 30 June 2012 |
There is, and historically there has been, throughout the company and the group, a commitment to high standards of corporate governance. The directors continue to develop procedures which ensure that, where the board considers it appropriate, the Beazley group will comply with the UK Corporate Governance Code.
The board confirms that the company and the group has complied with the provisions set out in the UK Corporate Governance Code for the year ended 31 December 2011.
The board is accountable to the company's shareholders for good governance and the statements set out below describe how the principles identified in the revised UK Corporate Governance Code have been applied by the group.
The board consists of a non-executive chairman, Jonathan Agnew, together with seven independent non-executive directors, of which George Blunden is the senior independent non-executive director, and six executive directors, of which Andrew Horton is chief executive. The non-executive directors, who have been appointed for specified terms, are considered by the board to be independent of management and free of any relationship which could materially interfere with the exercise of their independent judgement.
Biographies of current board members appear on pages 50 to 51 of this report. These indicate the high level and wide range of business experience that are essential to manage a business of this size and complexity. A well defined operational and management structure is in place and terms of reference exist for all board committees. The roles and responsibilities of senior executives and key members of staff are clearly defined.
The full board meets at least five times each year and more frequently where business needs require. The board has a schedule of matters reserved for its decision. This includes, inter alia strategic matters; statutory matters intended to generate and preserve value over the longer term; approval of financial statements and dividends; appointments and terminations of directors, officers and auditors; appointments of committees and setting of terms of reference. It is responsible for the review of group performance against budgets; approving of risk management strategy and material contracts; determining of authority levels within which management is required to operate; reviewing the group's annual forecasts and approval of the group's corporate business plans, including capital adequacy and the own risk solvency assessment. The board has also appointed an executive committee with delegated responsibility for particular matters such as considering the business plan, the underwriting, risk and regulations (included the effectiveness of the internal control and risk management systems), investments and operations.
There is an agreed principle that directors may take independent professional advice if necessary at the company's expense, on the basis that the expense is reasonable. This is in addition to the access which every director has to the company secretary. The secretary is charged by the board with ensuring that board procedures are followed.
To enable the board to function effectively and directors to discharge their responsibilities, full and timely access is given to all relevant information. In the case of board meetings, this consists of a comprehensive set of papers, including regular business progress reports and discussion documents regarding specific matters.
The composition of and appointments to the board of both executive and non-executive directors are considered by the nomination committee. The recommendations of the nomination committee are ultimately made to the full board, which considers them before any change is made. The remuneration committee considers any remuneration package of executive directors before it is offered to a potential appointee. The members of the audit, remuneration and nomination committees are set out below.
The board is complying with the provision on annual re-election of all directors introduced by the UK Corporate Governance Code.
Full details of directors' remuneration and a statement of the company's remuneration policy are set out in the directors' remuneration report on pages 57 to 72. The members of the remuneration committee and the principal terms of reference of the committee appear on page 55.
The chairman holds meetings as required with the non-executive directors without the executive directors being present.
Under the UK Corporate Governance Code, the board is required to undertake a formal and rigorous evaluation of its own performance and that of its committees and individual directors. A self assessment of the board and its committees was carried out in 2011.
In addition to the five regular board meetings, there was a further meeting to consider potential corporate transactions. Attendance at the meeting was high.
Attendance at the regular board and committee meetings is set out in the table below:
| Remuneration | Nomination | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Board | Audit committee | committee | committee | ||||||
| No. of | No. | No. of | No. | No. of | No. | No. of | No. | ||
| Director | meetings | attended | meetings | attended | meetings | attended | meetings | attended | |
| J G W Agnew | 5 | 5 | – | – | – | – | 5 | 5 | |
| G P Blunden | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | |
| M L Bride | 5 | 5 | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| A P Cox | 5 | 5 | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| N H Furlonge | 2 | 2 | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| J G Gray | 5 | 5 | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| A G K Hamilton | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | |
| D Holt | 2 | 2 | – | – | – | – | 2 | 1 | |
| D A Horton | 5 | 5 | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| P J O'Connor | 5 | 5 | – | – | 5 | 5 | – | – | |
| N P Maidment | 5 | 5 | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| A D Pomfret | 3 | 3 | – | – | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | |
| V J Sheridan | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 | – | – | – | – | |
| K P Sroka | 5 | 5 | – | – | 5 | 5 | – | – | |
| R W Tolle | 5 | 5 | 6 | 5 | – | – | – | – | |
| C A Washbourn | 5 | 4 | – | – | – | – | – | – |
On 21 July 2011 Andy Pomfret resigned from the board and the remuneration and nomination committees. Dennis Holt was appointed to the board and the nomination committee on 21 July 2011. Nick Furlonge retired from the board on 30 June 2011.
The company has established properly constituted audit, remuneration and nomination committees of the board.
The audit committee currently comprises Gordon Hamilton (committee chairman), Vincent Sheridan, George Blunden and Rolf Tolle. The committee regularly meets without any executive management being present and the committee holds regular meetings with the head of internal audit and with the external auditor.
The committee's main objectives are, inter alia: to monitor the integrity of the company's financial statements and any other formal announcements relating to the company's financial performance; review significant financial reporting judgements contained in them, before submission to and approval by, the board, and before clearance by the external auditors; review the company's internal financial controls and the company's internal control and risk management systems including risk appetite; approve the appointment or termination of appointment, of the head of internal audit and monitor and review the effectiveness of the company's internal audit function; and review the arrangements by which employees of the company may, in confidence, raise concerns about possible improprieties in matters of financial reporting or other matters.
The committee also reviews any matters raised by the external auditors and internal audit. The chief executive, the finance director, and the chief risk officer are invited to attend part of each meeting of this committee. The audit committee received a number of presentations during the year on operational and underwriting activities. The external auditors are invited to attend meetings regularly. The auditors have unrestricted access to the members of the audit committee, and the committee ensures that meetings are used as a forum for discussion and communication between compliance, internal audit, the external auditors and the board. The committee receives regular updates and monitors the status of actions taken by management to address issues raised by both external and internal audit. Risk management provides reports to the audit committee on the risk assessment and the self-certification from risk owners of the operating effectiveness of internal controls. The audit committee undertakes a regular appraisal of its performance in relation to best practice. Findings of this review are formally reported to the board.
In respect of any firm of external auditors and consulting actuaries which may be appointed by any group company, the audit committee is also responsible for recommending their appointment and termination; recommending their terms of reference; receiving regular reports, independent of management where necessary; determining their independence; monitoring their performance; and approving their fees.
Following a recommendation from the audit committee, the board has adopted a policy in relation to the provision of non-audit services by the auditors. The objective is to ensure that the provision of such services does not impair the external auditor's objectivity. The policy specifically disallows certain activities to be provided by the auditors such as bookkeeping and accounting services, internal actuarial services and executive remuneration services. The policy requires pre-approval for all other material services such as due diligence assistance, tax services and advice on accounting and audit matters.
The aim is to limit the total spend on non-audit services to a maximum of the annual audit fee unless it is deemed to be in the shareholders' interest from an efficiency and effectiveness point of view.
The split between audit and non-audit fees for the year under review is disclosed on page 108. All of these are considered by the audit committee not to affect the auditors' independence or objectivity.
The committee's terms of reference are published on the company's website.
The remuneration committee comprises Padraic O'Connor (who was appointed committee chairman following the departure of Andy Pomfret on 21 July 2011), Gordon Hamilton, George Blunden and Ken Sroka. The work of the remuneration committee is covered further in the directors' remuneration report on pages 57 to 72.
Copies of executive directors' service contracts and the terms and conditions of appointment of the non-executive directors are available for inspection at the company's office during normal business hours.
The terms of reference of the remuneration committee are published on the company's website.
The nomination committee consists of Jonathan Agnew as the chairman, together with George Blunden, Gordon Hamilton and Dennis Holt (from 21 July 2011). Andy Pomfret left the committee on 21 July 2011. It meets as required and makes recommendations to the board on all board appointments, including the selection of non-executive directors. During 2011 the nomination committee carried out the search for a new chairman. Independent external advisors were engaged to support the search which resulted in the nomination committee recommending the appointment of Dennis Holt. The committee has reviewed the constitution of the committees and recommended the appointment of Dennis Holt to the nomination committee. The committee also recommended the appointment of Padraic O'Connor as chairman of the remuneration committee and George Blunden as senior independent director. In response to challenges to ensure diversity within in the UK board room, the board is seeking to appoint one female director by 2015 at the latest and the nomination committee will seek to ensure that this happens. The committee has also considered the performance of and succession plans for the executive directors. A full board and committee assessment has been carried out in 2011 and matters arising are being appropriately addressed.
The terms of reference of the nomination committee are published on the company's website.
The company places great importance on communication with shareholders. The full report and accounts and the interim report will be available from www.beazley.com and on request, will be mailed to shareholders and to other parties who have an interest in the group's performance. The company responds to individual letters from shareholders and maintains a separate investor relations centre within the existing www.beazley.com website as a repository for all investor relations matters.
There is regular dialogue with institutional shareholders as well as general presentations, attended by executive directors, after the preliminary and interim results. The board is advised of any specific comments from institutional investors to enable it to develop an understanding of the views of major shareholders. All shareholders have the opportunity to put forward questions at the company's annual general meeting.
The company has the authority within its articles to communicate with its shareholders using electronic and website communication and to allow for electronic proxy voting.
The respective responsibilities of the directors and the auditors in connection with the accounts are explained on pages 76 to 78, and the statement of directors on going concern on page 74.
The board confirms that there is a continuous process for identifying, evaluating and managing any significant compliance issues and risks facing the group. All significant risks are captured in the Beazley risk register and monitored on a monthly basis. The risk register and the relating internal capital assessment process are subject to review, challenge and approval by the board.
The directors are responsible for the group's system of internal control and for reviewing its effectiveness. However, such a system can only provide reasonable, but not absolute, assurance against material misstatement or loss. The system is designed to manage rather than eliminate the risk of failure to achieve business objectives within the risk appetite set by the board.
The key procedures that the directors have established to ensure that internal controls are effective and commensurate with a group of this size include:
Further information on the role of the audit committee is set out above. The committee, on behalf of the board, approves the internal audit plan and any subsequent changes. Internal audit reports directly to the audit committee, whose terms of reference include approving the appointment or termination of appointment, of the head of internal audit and monitoring and reviewing the effectiveness of the company's internal audit function.
Further information on risk management at Beazley is contained on pages 43 to 45.
This report has been prepared by the remuneration committee (the committee) of Beazley plc and approved by the board of Beazley plc. The report complies with the Large and Medium-sized Companies and Groups (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008.
The symbol ▪ by a heading indicates that the information in that section has been audited.
In the following pages the committee's report on directors' remuneration for 2011 is presented.
2011 has been a challenging year for the insurance market. However, the strength of Beazley's business model has been clearly demonstrated. The breadth of our product portfolio allowed the industry-wide catastrophe losses affecting certain lines to be offset by profits from insurance products where profitability was driven by different factors. Market conditions emphasised the skill of our underwriters in identifying profitable underwriting opportunities and in optimising the portfolio mix. Annual results reflected Beazley's resilient performance with a profit before tax of \$62.7m and we have maintained our track record of over 25 years of unbroken profitability.
Our resilience in a challenging year has been achieved by virtue of our greatest asset: our people. Talent management is one of the cornerstones of Beazley's business success, as we seek to recruit and retain people who rank among the best insurance professionals in the world. Against that background, ensuring Beazley has a competitive remuneration mix that rewards sustainable performance remains important to our future success.
Our executive remuneration policy is governed by two guiding principles – alignment to shareholder interests and performance of the group. The committee considers the overall package to be appropriate, responsible and balanced.
The remuneration committee regularly reviews whether our approach to remuneration is consistent with and takes account of the risk profile of the company. The committee receives an annual report from the chief risk officer on remuneration policy designed in respect of risk to ensure it is consistent with and promotes effective risk management.
We have made no significant changes to our executive remuneration policies during this year.
The average salary increase for executive directors was 4%, which is in line with the average increase throughout the organisation.
Our bonus framework is aligned to group performance. Notwithstanding that we consider we have performed well in a challenging year for the insurance market, the bonus awards are significantly lower than previous years reflecting our return on equity (ROE) and the profit before tax result for the year.
The long-term incentive plan (LTIP) is due to be renewed at this year's annual general meeting. The new plan retains the key features of the old LTIP. We have marginally adjusted the performance targets and new features include the introduction of a 'clawback' provision, dividend equivalents and a 5% dilution limit in a ten-year period for executive schemes.
We remain committed to employees throughout the organisation having an opportunity to share in Beazley's success. A new save as you earn (SAYE) plan, which maintains the same features as the current scheme, is due to be approved at this year's AGM.
We are keen to encourage an on going dialogue on our policies and continue to welcome our shareholders' views.
Remuneration committee chairman
6 February 2012
The main elements of the remuneration package payable to each executive director is comprised of basic salary, short-term incentive payments, pension contributions, long-term share-based incentives and other benefits. A summary of the key elements of remuneration for executive directors across the group is as follows:
| Executive directors | ||
|---|---|---|
| Element | Objective | Summary |
| Base salary | To recognise responsibilities | Reviewed annually. |
| For 2011, average executive director salary increases are 4%. | ||
| Enterprise bonus | To link reward to group profit and return on equity |
Incentive pool calculated as a percentage of profit subject to a minimum return on equity target. |
| Portion deferred into shares for three years (between 0% and 35% of bonus) dependent on level of bonus. |
||
| LTIP (following adoption of the new plan in |
To align the senior management team to the out-performance of the group by setting stretching |
Awards of 200% of salary for CEO and 150% of salary for other executive directors. |
| 2012) | performance targets over the longer term |
50% of an award is subject to performance over three years and 50% over five years. |
| Vesting dependent on net asset value per share (NAVps) performance against the risk-free rate: |
||
| • No vesting if NAVps growth is less than the risk-free rate plus 7.5% p.a. • 10% vest if NAVps growth exceeds the risk-free rate by 7.5% p.a. |
||
| • 25% vest if NAVps growth exceeds the risk-free rate by 10% p.a. • 100% vest if NAVps growth exceeds the risk-free rate by 15% p.a. • Pro-rating between points. |
||
| Shareholding requirements |
To align with shareholders' interests |
Shareholding requirements (as part of the LTIP) of 200% of salary for CEO and 150% of salary for other executive directors. |
| To be built up over three years. | ||
| Investment in underwriting |
To align personal capital with underwriting performance |
Executive directors and selected staff may voluntarily defer part of their bonuses into an underwriting syndicate. Capital commitments can be lost if underwriting performance is poor. |
| Benefits | To provide market levels of benefits |
Benefits include a company car or car allowance, private medical insurance and permanent health insurance. |
| Pension | To provide market levels of pension provision |
Defined contribution of 15% of salary for executive directors. |
| Service contracts | Company policy is that notice periods do not exceed 12 months |
No specific provision for compensation amounts. Policy includes consideration of mitigation and phasing. |
In addition to the above, the committee also has oversight of remuneration arrangements elsewhere in the group. The following tables set out the additional incentive arrangements for other staff within the organisation.
| Element | Objective | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Profit related pay plan |
To align underwriters' reward with the profitability of their account |
Profit on the relevant underwriting account as measured at three years and later. |
| Support bonus plan |
To align staff bonus with individual performance and achievement of objectives |
Participation is limited to staff members not on the executive or in receipt of profit related pay bonus. |
| Retention shares | To retain key staff | Used in exceptional circumstances. Full vesting dependent on continued employment over six years. |
Policy going forward is that existing executive directors do not participate in these plans. However, some executive directors have subsisting legacy retention shares.
| Element | Objective | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| SAYE | To create staff alignment with the group and promote a sense of ownership |
HMRC-approved monthly savings scheme facilitating the purchase of shares at a discount. |
| US SAYE | As above but for US employees |
The committee consists of only non-executive directors and during the year the members included Andy Pomfret, Gordon Hamilton, George Blunden, Padraic O'Connor and Ken Sroka. Andy Pomfret was chairman of the committee until July 2011 when Padraic O'Connor replaced him as chairman. The board views each of these directors as independent. The committee met five times during the year.
The committee considers the individual remuneration packages of the chief executive, executive directors and executive committee members. It also has oversight of the salary and bonus awards of individuals outside the executive committee who either directly report to executive committee members or who have basic salaries over £200,000, as well as the overall bonus pool and total incentives paid by the group. The terms of reference of the committee are available on the company's website.
The committee receives advice from a variety of sources. During the year the committee was advised by remuneration consultants from Deloitte LLP. Other organisations providing specialist advice and services to the company and the committee are: Bluefin Advisory Services Limited (for benefits and pensions advice), Towers Watson (for salary data) and Equiniti (for employee share incentives matters and registrar services). Other than the above, the advisors provide no other services to the group.
Input was also received by the committee during the year from the chief executive, head of talent management, the company secretary and the chief risk officer. However, no individual plays a part in the determination of their own remuneration.
The committee has oversight of the remuneration policy. The general philosophy underlying the reward strategy for executive directors is the same as that applied to all other employees. Pay and employment conditions elsewhere in the company and data on comparable positions in other similar organisations are taken into consideration when determining executive directors' remuneration.
The main aim of the policy is to ensure that management and staff are remunerated fairly and in such a manner as to facilitate the recruitment, retention and motivation of suitably qualified personnel.
We believe that:
The group's market for talent is primarily specialist underwriters at Lloyd's and internationally. In line with practice within the Lloyd's market, there are no upper limits on the amounts payable to executives under short-term incentives. The bonus pool approach closely aligns bonuses with group performance and a share deferral policy operates. The committee has previously considered whether it is appropriate to set an upper limit and has agreed that such a limit would adversely affect the group's competitive position and would not be in the interests of shareholders. However, the committee continues to monitor developing practice in this area.
The balance between fixed and variable elements of executive directors' remuneration changes with performance. The anticipated normal mix between fixed and variable remuneration is c.40% fixed and c.60% variable. A significant portion of variable pay is delivered in shares. This mix is illustrated in the following charts.
Balance of fixed versus variable pay (%)
Although the group is not subject to the FSA's Remuneration Code, the committee takes the Code into account when considering remuneration, along with developing remuneration governance in the context of Solvency II, other corporate governance developments and institutional shareholders' guidance. The committee continues to review remuneration against various guidelines and to monitor developments. The chief risk officer reports annually to the remuneration committee on risk and remuneration as part of the regular agenda. The committee believes the group is adopting an approach which is consistent with and takes account of the risk profile of the group. We believe reward at Beazley is appropriately balanced in light of risk considerations, particularly in the following areas:
| Features aligned with risk considerations | |
|---|---|
| Share deferral | A portion of bonus is normally deferred into shares for three years. These deferred shares, together with shares awarded under the LTIP, mean that a significant portion of total remuneration is delivered in the form of shares deferred for a period of years. |
| Extended performance periods | A portion of the LTIP has performance measured over an extended five-year period, in line with the Walker recommendations and FSA guidelines. |
| Shareholding requirements | Executive directors are expected to build up and maintain a shareholding of 150% of salary (200% for the CEO). |
| LTIP awards may be forfeited if shareholding requirements are not met. | |
| Investment in underwriting | Management and underwriters defer part of their bonuses into the Beazley staff underwriting plan providing alignment with capital providers. Capital commitments can be lost if underwriting performance is poor. |
| Underwriters' remuneration aligned with profit achieved |
Under the profit related bonus plan payments are aligned with the timing of profits achieved on the account. For long-tail accounts this may be in excess of six years. If the account deteriorates then payouts are 'clawed back' through adjustments to future payments. |
| 'Clawback' of deferred and LTIP shares | For deferred share awards from 2011 onwards, a 'clawback' provision has been introduced, so that shares may be forfeited in certain circumstances, including material misstatement of accounts or significant adverse company performance developments. This provision is being included in the new LTIP and will apply for awards from 2012. |
The committee reviews salaries annually taking into account levels in comparable positions in other similar financial service companies. It also considers the performance of the group and the individual as well as the average salary increase for employees across the whole group. Salary reviews take place in December of each year, with new salaries effective from 1 January.
For 2012, the average salary increase is 4%. This is in line with average salary increases across the group. Martin Bride and Adrian Cox received a salary increase of 6% reflecting development in the role and increased responsibility, respectively. All other executive directors received a salary increase of 3%.
The annualised base salaries for 2011 and 2012 are as set out below:
| 2011 base salary | 2012 base salary | |
|---|---|---|
| £ | £ | |
| M L Bride | 255,000 | 270,000 |
| A P Cox | 255,000 | 270,000 |
| J G Gray | 306,000 | 315,000 |
| D A Horton | 408,000 | 420,000 |
| N P Maidment | 306,000 | 315,000 |
| C A Washbourn | 306,000 | 315,000 |
Enterprise bonus plan
The enterprise bonus plan is a discretionary plan in which all employees are eligible to participate.
The pool is based on a percentage of profit subject to a minimum group return on equity target. The proportion of profit allocated to the pool increases as higher returns on equity (ROE) are achieved. The proportion of the pool awarded to executive directors takes into account the individual's contribution and the performance of their division (if appropriate).
The pool is based on the results for the financial year having being adjusted for the enterprise pool payment. The approach to the calculation of bonuses is aligned to shareholders' interests and ensures that bonuses are affordable, while the ROE targets increase the performance gearing.
The committee reviews the bonus pool framework each year to ensure it remains appropriate, taking into account the prevailing environment, interest rates and expected investment returns, headcount and any other relevant factors.
The following table and graph illustrates the way in which bonuses reflect profit and ROE performance.
| Average | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| executive | |||
| director | |||
| bonus as a | |||
| Pre-tax | Post-tax | percentage | |
| profit* | ROE | of salary | |
| 2011 | \$63m | 6% | c.64% |
| 2010 | \$217m | 19% | c.230% |
| 2009 | \$231m | 24% | c.230% |
| 2008 | \$76m | 8% | c.75% |
* Profit for years prior to 2010 has been converted from sterling based on the average prevailing exchange rate for that year.
Average executive director bonus payout (% of salary)
A portion of the bonus will generally be deferred into shares for three years. The deferral will range from 0% to 35% dependent on the level of bonus. Deferred share awards from 2011 onwards include a 'clawback' provision. The committee may determine that unvested shares will be forfeited in certain circumstances, such as a material misstatement of accounts or a significant adverse group development. A portion of bonus may also be deferred under the Beazley Staff Underwriting Plan, and this capital can be lost if underwriting performance is poor.
Underwriters participate in a profit related pay plan based upon the profitability of their underwriting account. Executive directors do not participate in this plan.
The objective of the plan is to align the interests of the group and the individual through aligning an underwriter's reward to the long-term profitability of their portfolio.
Underwriters who have significant influence over a portfolio may be offered awards under the plan. There is no automatic eligibility. Profit related pay is awarded irrespective of the results of the group and is capped at a maximum of 150% of salary.
This bonus is awarded as cash and is based upon a fixed proportion of profit achieved on the relevant underwriting account as measured at three years and later. Any movements in prior years are reflected in future year payments as the accounts develop after three years. For long-tail accounts the class is still relatively immature at the three-year stage and therefore payments will be modest. Underwriters may receive further payouts in years four, five and six (and even later) as the account matures. Therefore each year they could be receiving payouts in relation to multiple underwriting years.
If the account deteriorates as it develops any payouts are 'clawed back' through reductions in future profit related pay bonuses.
The fixed proportion is calculated based upon profit targets which are set through the business planning process and reviewed by a committee formed of executive committee members and functional specialists including the group actuary. Underwriting risk is taken into account when setting profit targets.
In addition to profit related pay, underwriters are also eligible to receive a discretionary bonus, based upon performance, from the enterprise bonus pool. A proportion of this bonus may be paid in deferred shares, which vest after three years subject to continued employment.
Employees who are not members of the executive and who do not participate in the underwriters' profit related pay plan participate in a discretionary bonus pool. This pool provides the employees with a discretionary award of an annual performance bonus that reflects overall individual performance including meeting annual objectives.
A proportion of this award may also be dependent on the group's return on equity and therefore allocated from the enterprise bonus pool. A proportion of this bonus may be paid in deferred shares, which vest after three years subject to continued employment.
The LTIP is being renewed in 2012. The new plan is largely the same as the previous plan and retains its key features. In particular there have been no changes to the level of awards. Further details of the new LTIP can be found in the shareholder circular.
Under the LTIP, executive directors, senior management and underwriters receive awards of shares subject to the achievement of stretching performance conditions measured over three and five years.
The key features of the plan are as follows:
In good leaver circumstances and on change of control, awards take into account time and performance.
The award level policy for 2012 is set out in the table below:
| Other | ||
|---|---|---|
| Chief | executive | |
| executive | directors | |
| Maximum annual award (as a percentage of base salary) | 200% | 150% |
Vesting of awards is based on growth in net asset value per share (NAVps), one of Beazley's key performance indicators. The committee considers the LTIP NAVps growth targets to be very stretching, particularly taking into account that growth must be over a sustained three and five year period.
The performance condition for awards from 2012 is as follows:
| % of | |
|---|---|
| NAVps performance | award vesting |
| NAVps growth < risk-free rate +7.5% p.a. | 0% |
| NAVps growth = risk-free rate +7.5% p.a. | 10% |
| NAVps growth = risk-free rate +10% p.a. | 25% |
| NAVps growth = risk-free rate +15% p.a. | 100% |
| Straight-line vesting between points |
Growth in NAVps is calculated taking into account any payment of dividends by the company. In line with our reporting to shareholders, NAVps is denominated in US dollars. For 2012 awards, the performance targets are equivalent to 2011 save that a modest level of vesting (10% of maximum) has been introduced for NAVps growth of RFR + 7.5% p.a. This level of performance is considered to be a challenging threshold, particularly for that part of the award where it must be sustained over five years.
For 2012 awards, participants will be entitled to dividend equivalents on vested shares.
A 'clawback' provision has been introduced to the new LTIP. The committee may determine that unvested shares will be forfeited in certain circumstances, such as a material misstatement of accounts or a significant adverse company development.
The LTIP awards that were granted on 3 March 2008 were based on NAVps growth and TSR performance. These awards met the performance criteria in part and 50% of the awards vested in March 2011. The results were independently calculated by Deloitte LLP.
The company operates an HMRC-approved SAYE scheme for the benefit of UK-based employees. The scheme offers a three-year savings contract period with options being offered at a 20% discount to the share price on grant. Monthly contributions are made through payroll deduction on behalf of participating employees. A new SAYE which retains these features is due to be approved at this year's AGM.
The Beazley plc savings-related share option plan for US employees permits all eligible US-based employees to purchase shares of Beazley plc at a discount of up to 15% to the shares' fair market value. Participants may exercise options after a two-year period, although the shares are non-transferable for a further 12 months following exercise. The plan is compliant with the terms of Section 423 of the US Internal Revenue Code and is similar to the SAYE scheme operated for UK-based Beazley employees.
The retention plan is now only used in exceptional circumstances for recruitment or retention purposes. Any awards vest at 25% per annum over years three to six. Policy going forward is that existing executive directors do not participate in this plan. However, some executive directors have subsisting legacy awards.
The option plan does not form part of Beazley's current remuneration policy. The plan comprises an HMRC-approved plan and an unapproved plan. All options granted under this plan have vested or lapsed. It is the committee's intention to only grant options under this plan in exceptional circumstances. No options have been granted since 2005. This plan is due to expire on 12 November 2012 and it is not intended that it will be renewed.
The share plans permit 10% of the company's issued share capital to be issued pursuant to awards under the LTIP, SAYE and option plan in a ten-year period.
Following the adoption of the new LTIP, the company will adhere to a dilution limit of 5% in a ten-year period for executive schemes.
Traditionally, Lloyd's underwriters contributed their personal capital to syndicates in which they worked. With the move to corporate provision of capital, individual membership of Lloyd's has declined significantly. The committee feels that having personal capital at risk in the syndicate is an important part of the remuneration policy and provides a healthy counterbalance to incentivisation through bonuses and long-term incentive awards. The company has operated the Beazley Staff Underwriting Plan for this purpose since 2004 and executive directors and other selected staff are invited to participate through bonus deferral with an element of their cash incentives 'at risk' as capital commitments. These capital commitments can be lost in full if underwriting performance is poor.
The group funds the initial capital for the participants in the scheme. The initial capital outlay is then reimbursed by individual bonus deferral. The aim is for individuals to fund their capital within three years.
To date over 130 employees of the group have committed to put at risk £6.7m of bonuses to the underwriting results of syndicate 623. Of the total at risk, £5.8m has already been deferred from the bonuses awarded.
The following directors participated in syndicate 623 through Beazley Staff Underwriting Limited:
| 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total | year of | year of | year of |
| bonuses | account | account | account |
| deferred | underwriting | underwriting | underwriting |
| and at risk | capacity | capacity | capacity |
| £ | £ | £ | £ |
| 150,000 | 400,000 | 350,000 | 400,000 |
| 216,000 | 400,000 | 350,000 | 400,000 |
| 216,000 | 400,000 | 350,000 | 400,000 |
| 216,000 | 400,000 | 350,000 | 400,000 |
| 216,000 | 400,000 | 350,000 | 400,000 |
| 216,000 | 400,000 | 350,000 | 400,000 |
The pension benefits for directors and staff are provided by way of a defined contribution scheme arranged through Fidelity, which is non-contributory. The company contributes 15% of salary for directors.
Following changes to pension tax legislation that came into force from April 2011, an equivalent cash alternative may be offered if an individual exceeds the lifetime allowance. No cash alternative will be offered on pension payments above the new annual limit and individuals are responsible for any tax implications arising.
Prior to 31 March 2006 the company provided pension entitlements to directors that are defined benefit in nature, based on its legacy policy under the Beazley Furlonge Limited Final Salary Pension Scheme. Future service accruals ceased on 31 March 2006. Only base salary is pensionable, subject to an earnings cap. The normal retirement age for pension calculation purposes is 60 years. A spouse's pension is the equivalent of two-thirds of the member's pension (before any commutation) payable on the member's death after retirement.
No other pension provisions are made.
Details of the defined benefit entitlements of those who served as directors during the year are as follows:
| Transfer | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Increase | Increase | Transfer | value | Increase in | ||
| Accrued | in accrued | in accrued | value of (A) | of accrued | transfer | |
| benefit at | benefits | benefits | less | benefits at | value less | |
| 31 Dec | excluding | including | directors' | 31 Dec | directors' | |
| 2011 | inflation (A) | inflation | contributions | 2011 | contributions | |
| £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | |
| A P Cox | 11,084 | – | 644 | – | 162,605 | 41,230 |
| J G Gray | 31,151 | – | 1,811 | – | 739,075 | 86,899 |
| N P Maidment | 37,840 | – | 2,200 | – | 664,052 | 115,069 |
| C A Washbourn | 16,818 | – | 978 | – | 308,900 | 50,809 |
Benefits include private medical insurance for the director and his immediate family, permanent health insurance, death in service benefit at four times annual salary, travel insurance, health-club membership, season ticket, car parking and the provision of either a company car or a monthly car allowance.
Executive directors have service contracts with Beazley Management Limited. In June 2009, following the redomiciliation to Ireland, the directors were issued with new service contracts from Beazley Management Limited and appointment letters as directors of Beazley plc.
It is company policy that such service contracts with executive directors contain notice periods, from the company or employee, of not more than 12 months. The current contracts in place for executive directors are as follows:
| Date of contract | |
|---|---|
| M L Bride | 9 June 2009 |
| A P Cox | 6 Dec 2010 |
| J G Gray | 9 June 2009 |
| D A Horton | 9 June 2009 |
| N P Maidment | 9 June 2009 |
| C A Washbourn | 9 June 2009 |
The notice period for each of the above contracts is 12 months. There is no unexpired term as each of the executive directors' contracts is on a rolling basis.
Subject to the notice requirements described above, there is no provision in the service agreements for compensation to be payable on early termination of the contract. Any payments of compensation will be subject to negotiation and the group policy includes consideration of appropriate mitigation, including phasing of payments.
Nick Furlonge also held a non-executive appointment with the Lloyd's franchise board. He was appointed to this role on 4 February 2008. He received and retained a fee of £55,000 per annum in respect of this appointment.
The fees of non-executive directors, other than the chairman, are determined by the board. The fees for the chairman are determined by the board, following a recommendation from the remuneration committee. When setting fee levels consideration is given to levels in comparable companies for comparable services in addition to the time commitment and responsibilities of the individual director.
No non-executive director participates in the group's incentive arrangements or pension plan.
Non-executive directors are appointed for fixed terms, normally for three years, and may be reappointed for future terms. Non-executive directors are typically appointed through a selection process that assesses whether the candidate brings the desired competence and skills to the group.
The board has identified several key competencies for non-executive directors to complement the existing skill-set of the executive directors. These competencies are as follows:
Beazley operates across Lloyd's and the US markets through a variety of legal entities and structures. Non-executive directors, in addition to the plc board, typically sit on either one of our key subsidiary boards, ie Beazley Furlonge Limited (BFL), our managing agency at Lloyd's, or Beazley Re Limited, our reinsurance company. As a result of developments in regulation, the degree of autonomy in the operation of each board has increased in recent years, with a consequent increase in time commitment and scope of the role.
The board reviews fees annually. During the year fees were increased by 3%.
In July Dennis Holt joined the Beazley board as a non-executive director. Dennis is expected to take up the position of non-executive chairman following the annual general meeting in March 2012, succeeding Jonathan Agnew. His fees on appointment as a non-executive director were the basic fee for a Beazley plc non-executive director and for non-executive director of Beazley Furlonge Limited and on taking up appointment as chairman the fees would be equivalent to the current chairman fees.
Details of the non-executive directors' terms of appointment and their fees for 2012 are set out below:
| Other fees | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Current annual fee |
Commencement date of appointment |
Expires | Senior independent director |
Audit committee chair |
Remuneration committee chair |
Beazley Furlonge Limited |
Beazley Re Limited |
|
| J G W Agnew (£) | 123,500 | 20 Mar 2009 | 27 Mar 2012 | – | – | – | 31,000 | – |
| G P Blunden (£) | 52,500 | 1 Jan 2010 | 31 Dec 2012 | 6,250 | – | – | 15,500 | – |
| A G K Hamilton (£) | 52,500 | 20 Mar 2009 | 30 Sep 2012 | – | 15,500 | – | 15,500 | – |
| D Holt (£) | 52,500 | 21 Jul 2011 | 21 Jul 2014 | – | – | – | 15,500 | – |
| P J O'Connor (€) | 63,000 | 20 Mar 2009 | 12 Mar 2015 | – | – | 12,250 | – | 8,250 |
| V J Sheridan (€) | 63,000 | 9 Jun 2009 | 21 May 2015 | – | – | – | – | 8,250 |
| K P Sroka (£) | 52,500 | 12 Nov 2010 | 11 Nov 2013 | – | – | – | – | – |
| R A W Tolle (£) | 52,500 | 6 Dec 2010 | 5 Dec 2013 | – | – | – | 15,500 | – |
Nick Furlonge retired on 30 June 2011. Following his retirement he continues in his role as a non-executive director of Beazley's subsidiary. His emoluments to 30 June 2011 are set out in the emolument tables. The treatment of share awards was as follows:
Treatment of outstanding amounts for the staff underwriting plan will follow normal rules applicable to leavers of the scheme.
Following his retirement, during the past financial year Nick Furlonge's fees in respect of his role as non-executive director of BFL were £20,500.
Dan Jones is a former non-executive director of Beazley plc who stood down from the Board on 2 June 2010. He was subsequently appointed in an executive capacity to serve on the executive committee. During the past financial year his compensation in respect of this executive role was \$647,310 comprising his annual salary, bonus, benefits and pension (US 401K scheme). He was made an LTIP award over 304,431 shares subject to performance conditions.
The emoluments in respect of qualifying services and compensation of each person who served as a director during the year were as follows:
| Staff | Total for | Total for | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | underwriting | Staff | Notional | 12 months to | Company | 12 months to | ||||
| Salary and | Enterprise | deferred | deferred | underwriting | dividend | 31 December | pension | 31 December | ||
| £ | fees1 | cash bonus | shares | bonus2 | distribution3 | on shares4 | Benefits | 2011 | contribution | 2010 |
| J G W Agnew | 150,000 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 150,000 | – | 105,000 |
| G P Blunden5 | 68,661 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 68,661 | – | 50,000 |
| M L Bride | 255,000 | 87,500 | 18,000 | 37,500 | – | – | 11,248 | 409,248 | 38,250 | 758,026 |
| A P Cox | 255,000 | 175,000 | 18,000 | – | 65,683 | 31,870 | 11,073 | 556,626 | 38,250 | 68,448 |
| N H Furlonge6 | 130,000 | – | – | – | 49,522 | 16,967 | 10,921 | 207,410 | – | 831,800 |
| J G Gray | 306,000 | 100,000 | 20,000 | – | 49,490 | 29,393 | 16,165 | 521,048 | 46,307 | 878,116 |
| A G K Hamilton | 81,000 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 81,000 | – | 60,000 |
| D Holt7 | 29,277 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 29,277 | – | – |
| D A Horton | 408,000 | 200,000 | 25,000 | – | 49,522 | 107,419 | 16,534 | 806,475 | 61,200 | 1,571,639 |
| N P Maidment | 306,000 | 150,000 | 20,000 | – | 49,490 | 28,077 | 16,229 | 569,796 | 45,900 | 1,176,772 |
| P J O'Connor8 | 64,803 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 64,803 | – | 51,282 |
| A D Pomfret9 | 45,731 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 45,731 | – | 64,000 |
| V J Sheridan8 | 60,174 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 60,174 | – | 51,282 |
| K Sroka | 51,000 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 51,000 | – | 6,849 |
| R A W Tolle | 66,000 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 66,000 | – | 3,562 |
| C A Washbourn | 306,000 | 300,000 | 20,000 | – | 49,490 | 86,098 | 11,633 | 773,221 | 46,187 1,424,839 | |
| Total | 2,582,646 1,012,500 | 121,000 | 37,500 | 313,197 | 299,824 | 93,803 | 4,460,470 | 276,094 | 7,101,615 |
Other than for the chairman, fees include fees paid for chairmanship of the audit and remuneration committees and for the role of senior independent director.
The directors defer bonus entitlements to support their underwriting through Beazley Staff Underwriting Limited.
This is return on a voluntary investment which is at risk.
The notional dividend is a cash bonus equal to dividends the directors would have received during the vesting period of the deferred and retention shares.
Mr Blunden was appointed as senior independent director on 21 July 2011 and his fees include his earnings as a senior independent director fee from this date.
Mr Furlonge retired on 30 June 2011 from his executive role and his salary, bonus and benefits relate to his earnings as executive director up to this date.
Mr Holt was appointed to the board on 21 July 2011 and his fees relate to his earnings from this date.
For Mr O'Connor and Mr Sheridan, their non-executive director fee was based on €69,200 and has been converted into sterling for this table at the average exchange rate of 1.15. Mr O'Connor was appointed remuneration committee chairman on 21 July and his fees also include his earnings as remuneration committee chairman from this date.
Mr Pomfret stood down as a non-executive director on 21 July 2011 and his fees relate to his earnings to this date.
Details of share plan interests of those directors who served during the period are as follows:
| Outstanding | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| At 31 Dec | options at 31 Dec |
Exercise | Closing share price on date |
Earliest date | |||||
| 2010 | Awarded | Exercised | Lapsed | 2011 | price | of exercise | of exercise | Expiry date | |
| M L Bride | |||||||||
| Deferred bonus: | |||||||||
| 27 Apr 2009 | 200,000 | – | – | – | 200,000 | – | – | 27/04/2012 | 27/05/2012 |
| 23 Feb 2010 | 93,284 | – | – | – | 93,284 | – | – | 23/02/2013 | 23/03/2013 |
| 14 Feb 2011 | – | 94,197 | – | – | 94,197 | – | – | 14/02/2014 | 14/03/2014 |
| LTIP (see notes): | |||||||||
| 27 Apr 2009 | 100,000 | – | – | – | 100,000 | – | – | 27/04/2012 | 27/04/2019 |
| 18 Feb 2010 – 3 year | 174,907 | – | – | – | 174,907 | – | – | 18/02/2013 | 18/02/2020 |
| 18 Feb 2010 – 5 year | 174,907 | – | – | – | 174,907 | – | – | 18/02/2015 | 18/02/2020 |
| 14 Feb 2011 – 3 year | – | 144,122 | – | – | 144,122 | – | – | 14/02/2014 | 14/02/2021 |
| 14 Feb 2011 – 5 year | – | 144,122 | – | – | 144,122 | – | – | 14/02/2016 | 14/02/2021 |
| Retention shares: | |||||||||
| 27 Apr 2009 | 150,000 | – | – | – | 150,000 | – | – | 27/04/2012 | 27/05/2015 |
| SAYE: | |||||||||
| 2010 | 10,591 | – | – | – | 10,591 | 0.8568 | – | 01/07/2013 | 01/01/2014 |
| A P Cox | |||||||||
| Deferred bonus: | |||||||||
| 03 Mar 2008 | 74,108 | – | 74,108 | – | – | – | 1.24341 | 03/03/2011 | 03/04/2011 |
| 23 Feb 2010 | 139,925 | – | – | – | 139,925 | – | – | 23/02/2013 | 23/03/2013 |
| 14 Feb 2011 | – | 131,876 | – | – | 131,876 | – | – | 14/02/2014 | 14/03/2014 |
| LTIP (see notes): | |||||||||
| 16 Feb 2009 | 204,725 | – | – | – | 204,725 | – | – | 16/02/2012 | 16/02/2019 |
| 18 Feb 2010 – 3 year | 174,907 | – | – | – | 174,907 | – | – | 18/02/2013 | 18/02/2020 |
| 18 Feb 2010 – 5 year | 174,907 | – | – | – | 174,907 | – | – | 18/02/2015 | 18/02/2020 |
| 14 Feb 2011 – 3 year | – | 144,122 | – | – | 144,122 | – | – | 14/02/2014 | 14/02/2021 |
| 14 Feb 2011 – 5 year | – | 144,122 | – | – | 144,122 | – | – | 14/02/2016 | 14/02/2021 |
| Retention shares: | |||||||||
| 21 Mar 2006 | 18,002 | – | 18,002 | – | – | – | 1.29500 | 21/03/2009 | 21/04/2011 |
| 13 Mar 2007 | 137,220 | – | 45,740 | – | 91,480 | – | 1.31400 | 13/03/2010 | 13/04/2013 |
| SAYE: | |||||||||
| 2009 | 13,071 | – | – | – | 13,071 | 0.7000 | – | 01/07/2012 | 01/01/2013 |
| N H Furlonge | |||||||||
| Deferred bonus: | |||||||||
| 03 Mar 2008 | 62,896 | – | 62,896 | – | – | – | 1.24341 | 03/03/2011 | 03/04/2011 |
| 23 Feb 2010 | 93,284 | – | – | – | 93,284 | – | – | 23/02/2013 | 23/03/2013 |
| 14 Feb 2011 | – | 75,357 | – | – | 75,357 | – | – | 14/02/2014 | 14/03/2014 |
| LTIP (see notes): | |||||||||
| 03 Mar 2008 | 62,896 | – | 31,448 | 31,448 | – | – | 1.27600 | 03/03/2011 | 03/03/2018 |
| 16 Feb 2009 | 204,725 | – | 81,890 | 122,835 | – | – | 1.29500 | 16/02/2012 | 16/02/2019 |
| 18 Feb 2010 – 3 year | 178,405 | – | 81,549 | 96,856 | – | – | 1.29500 | 18/02/2013 | 18/02/2020 |
| 18 Feb 2010 – 5 year | 178,405 | – | 48,383 | 130,022 | – | – | 1.29500 | 18/02/2015 | 18/02/2020 |
| 14 Feb 2011 – 3 year | – | 146,948 | – | 146,948 | – | – | – | 14/02/2014 | 14/02/2021 |
| 14 Feb 2011 – 5 year | – | 146,948 | – | 146,948 | – | – | – | 14/02/2016 | 14/02/2021 |
| Retention shares: | |||||||||
| 21 Mar 2006 | 24,635 | – | 24,635 | – | – | – | 1.29500 | 21/03/2009 | 21/04/2011 |
| SAYE: | |||||||||
| 2009 | 13,071 | – | 10,779 | 2,292 | – | 0.7000 | 1.33400 | 01/07/2012 | 01/01/2013 |
| Outstanding | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| options | Closing share | ||||||||
| At 31 Dec 2010 |
Awarded | Exercised | Lapsed | at 31 Dec 2011 |
Exercise price |
price on date of exercise |
Earliest date of exercise |
Expiry date | |
| J G Gray | |||||||||
| Deferred bonus: | |||||||||
| 03 Mar 2008 | 107,554 | – | 107,554 | – | – | – | 1.24341 | 03/03/2011 | 03/04/2011 |
| 23 Feb 2010 | 116,604 | – | – | – | 116,604 | – | – | 23/02/2013 | 23/03/2013 |
| 14 Feb 2011 | – | 94,197 | – | – | 94,197 | – | – | 14/02/2014 | 14/03/2014 |
| LTIP (see notes): | |||||||||
| 03 Mar 2008 | 113,214 | – | 56,607 | 56,607 | – | – | 1.27600 | 03/03/2011 | 03/03/2018 |
| 16 Feb 2009 | 204,725 | – | – | – | 204,725 | – | – | 16/02/2012 | 16/02/2019 |
| 18 Feb 2010 – 3 year | 209,888 | – | – | – | 209,888 | – | – | 18/02/2013 | 18/02/2020 |
| 18 Feb 2010 – 5 year | 209,888 | – | – | – | 209,888 | – | – | 18/02/2015 | 18/02/2020 |
| 14 Feb 2011 – 3 year | – | 172,946 | – | – | 172,946 | – | – | 14/02/2014 | 14/02/2021 |
| 14 Feb 2011 – 5 year | – | 172,946 | – | – | 172,946 | – | – | 14/02/2016 | 14/02/2021 |
| Retention shares: | |||||||||
| 21 Mar 2006 | 47,104 | – | 47,104 | – | – | – | 1.29500 | 21/03/2009 | 21/04/2011 |
| SAYE: | |||||||||
| 2009 | 13,071 | – | – | – | 13,071 | 0.7000 | – | 01/07/2012 | 01/01/2013 |
| D A Horton | |||||||||
| Deferred bonus: | |||||||||
| 03 Mar 2008 | 105,038 | – | 105,038 | – | – | – | 1.24341 | 03/03/2011 | 03/04/2011 |
| 23 Feb 2010 | 233,209 | – | – | – | 233,209 | – | – | 23/02/2013 | 23/03/2013 |
| 14 Feb 2011 | – | 188,394 | – | – | 188,394 | – | – | 14/02/2014 | 14/03/2014 |
| LTIP (see notes): | |||||||||
| 03 Mar 2008 | 78,621 | – | 39,310 | 39,311 | – | – | 1.27600 | 03/03/2011 | 03/03/2018 |
| 16 Feb 2009 | 204,725 | – | – | – | 204,725 | – | – | 16/02/2012 | 16/02/2019 |
| 18 Feb 2010 – 3 year | 363,207 | – | – | – | 363,207 | – | – | 18/02/2013 | 18/02/2020 |
| 18 Feb 2010 – 5 year | 363,207 | – | – | – | 363,207 | – | – | 18/02/2015 | 18/02/2020 |
| 14 Feb 2011 – 3 year | – | 307,460 | – | – | 307,460 | – | – | 14/02/2014 | 14/02/2021 |
| 14 Feb 2011 – 5 year | – | 307,460 | – | – | 307,460 | – | – | 14/02/2016 | 14/02/2021 |
| Retention shares: | |||||||||
| 21 Mar 2006 | 41,057 | – | 41,057 | – | – | – | 1.29500 | 21/03/2009 | 21/04/2011 |
| 09 Oct 2007 | 783,075 | – | 261,025 | – | 522,050 | – | 1.19200 | 09/10/2010 | 09/11/2013 |
| SAYE: | |||||||||
| 2009 | 13,071 | – | – | – | 13,071 | 0.7000 | 01/07/2012 | 01/01/2013 | |
| N P Maidment | |||||||||
| Deferred bonus: | |||||||||
| 03 Mar 2008 | 106,925 | – | 106,925 | – | – | – | 1.24341 | 03/03/2011 | 03/04/2011 |
| 23 Feb 2010 | 186,567 | – | – | – | 186,567 | – | – | 23/03/2013 | 23/03/2013 |
| 14 Feb 2011 | – | 150,715 | – | – | 150,715 | – | – | 14/03/2014 | 14/03/2014 |
| LTIP (see notes): | |||||||||
| 03 Mar 2008 | 62,896 | – | 31,448 | 31,448 | – | – | 1.27600 | 03/03/2011 | 03/03/2018 |
| 16 Feb 2009 | 204,725 | – | – | – | 204,725 | – | – | 16/02/2012 | 16/02/2019 |
| 18 Feb 2010 – 3 year | 209,888 | – | – | – | 209,888 | – | – | 18/02/2013 | 18/02/2020 |
| 18 Feb 2010 – 5 year | 209,888 | – | – | – | 209,888 | – | – | 18/02/2015 | 18/02/2020 |
| 14 Feb 2011 – 3 year | – | 172,946 | – | – | 172,946 | – | – | 14/02/2014 | 14/02/2021 |
| 14 Feb 2011 – 5 year | – | 172,946 | – | – | 172,946 | – | – | 14/02/2016 | 14/02/2021 |
| Retention shares: | |||||||||
| 21 Mar 2006 | 31,782 | – | 31,782 | – | – | – | 1.29500 | 21/03/2009 | 21/04/2011 |
| SAYE: | |||||||||
| 2010 | 10,591 | – | – | – | 10,591 | .8568 | – | 01/07/2013 | 01/01/2014 |
| Outstanding | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| options | Closing share | ||||||||
| At 31 Dec | at 31 Dec | Exercise | price on date | Earliest date | |||||
| 2010 | Awarded | Exercised | Lapsed | 2011 | price | of exercise | of exercise | Expiry date | |
| C A Washbourn | |||||||||
| Deferred bonus: | |||||||||
| 03 Mar 2008 | 125,794 | – | 125,794 | – | – | – | 1.24341 | 03/03/2011 | 03/04/2011 |
| 23 Feb 2010 | 233,209 | – | – | – | 233,209 | – | – | 23/02/2013 | 23/03/2013 |
| 14 Feb 2011 | – | 188,394 | – | – | 188,394 | – | – | 14/02/2014 | 14/03/2014 |
| LTIP (see notes): | |||||||||
| 03 Mar 2008 | 132,084 | – | 66,042 | 66,042 | – | – | 1.27600 | 03/03/2011 | 03/03/2018 |
| 16 Feb 2009 | 204,725 | – | – | – | 204,725 | – | – | 16/02/2012 | 16/02/2019 |
| 18 Feb 2010 – 3 year | 209,888 | – | – | – | 209,888 | – | – | 18/02/2013 | 18/02/2020 |
| 18 Feb 2010 – 5 year | 209,888 | – | – | – | 209,888 | – | – | 18/02/2015 | 18/02/2020 |
| 14 Feb 2011 – 3 year | – | 172,946 | – | – | 172,946 | – | – | 14/02/2014 | 14/02/2021 |
| 14 Feb 2011 – 5 year | – | 172,946 | – | – | 172,946 | – | – | 14/02/2016 | 14/02/2021 |
| Retention shares: | |||||||||
| 21 Mar 2006 | 41,848 | – | 41,848 | – | – | – | 1.29500 | 21/03/2009 | 21/04/2011 |
| 04 Dec 2006 | 522,050 | – | 261,025 | – | 261,025 | – | 1.36600 | 04/12/2009 | 04/01/2013 |
| SAYE: | |||||||||
| 2009 | 13,071 | – | – | – | 13,071 | 0.7000 | – | 01/07/2012 | 01/01/2013 |
Note – The above is a correction in only the description of the performance condition from the description provided in the 2009 and 2010 Directors' Remuneration Reports. In relation to the TSR portion of the basic shares only, the reports incorrectly described vesting at median for the basic shares portion as 25% rather than 50%.
| Shareholding as a | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of | Number of | percentage of the | |||||
| ordinary shares | ordinary shares | total issued ordinary | |||||
| held as at | Options | Options | Shares | Shares | held as at | share capital as at | |
| 1 Jan 2011 | exercised | sold | purchased | sold | 31 Dec 2011 | 31 Dec 2011 | |
| J G W Agnew | 226,147 | – | – | – | – | 226,147 | 0.04 |
| M L Bride | 219,616 | – | – | 7,694 | – | 227,310 | 0.04 |
| N H Furlonge | 1,689,651 | 341,580 | 174,856 | – | 600,000 | 1,256,375 | 0.24 |
| J G Gray | 2,487,026 | 211,265 | 188,742 | – | 1,250,000 | 1,259,549 | 0.24 |
| A G K Hamilton | 37,991 | – | – | – | – | 37,991 | 0.01 |
| D A Horton | 973,491 | 446,430 | 234,038 | – | – | 1,185,883 | 0.23 |
| N P Maidment | 3,462,526 | 170,155 | 89,424 | – | – | 3,543,257 | 0.68 |
| P O'Connor | 30,000 | – | – | – | – | 30,000 | 0.01 |
| A D Pomfret | 24,315 | – | – | – | – | 24,315 | 0.00 |
| V J Sheridan | 20,000 | – | – | – | – | 20,000 | 0.00 |
| C A Washbourn | 378,852 | 494,709 | 494,709 | – | – | 378,852 | 0.07 |
| G P Blunden | 107,156 | – | – | – | – | 107,156 | 0.02 |
| A P Cox | 254,089 | 137,850 | 71,191 | – | – | 320,748 | 0.06 |
| R A W Tolle | – | – | – | 60,000 | – | 60,000 | 0.01 |
| K P Sroka | – | – | – | – | – | – | 0.00 |
| D Holt | – | – | – | – | – | – | 0.00 |
| Total | 9,910,860 | 1,801,989 | 1,252,960 | 67,694 | 1,850,000 | 8,677,583 | 1.65 |
No changes in the interests of directors have occurred between 31 December 2011 and 6 February 2012.
A resolution will be proposed at the forthcoming annual general meeting to be held on 27 March 2012 to approve this directors' remuneration report.
I am keen to encourage an on going dialogue with shareholders. Accordingly, please feel free to contact me, if you would like to discuss any matter arising from this report or on remuneration issues generally, either by writing to me at the company's head office or by email through Sian Coope at [email protected]
By order of the board
Chairman of the remuneration committee
6 February 2012
The directors have pleasure in presenting their report and the audited financial statements of the group for the year ended 31 December 2011.
Beazley plc is the ultimate holding company for the Beazley group, a global specialist risk insurance and reinsurance business operating through its managed syndicates 2623, 6107, 3623, 3622 and 623 at Lloyd's in the UK and Beazley Insurance Company, Inc., a US admitted carrier in the US.
A more detailed review of the business for the year and a summary of future developments are included in the chairman and chief executive's letter on pages 10 to 13 and the financial review on pages 30 to 40.
The consolidated profit before taxation for the year ended 31 December 2011 amounted to \$62.7m (2010: \$250.8m)
The directors announce a second interim dividend of 5.4 pence per ordinary share (2010 second interim dividend: 5.1 pence plus a special dividend of 2.5 pence). This dividend, together with the first interim dividend of 2.5 pence per ordinary share (2010 first interim dividend 2.4 pence), gives a total of 7.9 pence.
The second interim dividend will be paid on 30 March 2012 to shareholders on the register on 2 March 2012 (save to the extent that shareholders on the register of members on 2 March 2012 are to be paid a dividend by a subsidiary of the company (being Beazley DAS Limited) resident for tax purposes in the United Kingdom pursuant to elections made or deemed to have been made and such shareholders shall have no right to this second interim dividend).
The directors of the company at 31 December 2011, who served during the year and to the date of this report, were as follows:
| Jonathan Geoffrey William Agnew | (non-executive chairman) |
|---|---|
| David Andrew Horton | (chief executive) |
| George Patrick Blunden | (non-executive director) |
| Martin Lindsay Bride | (finance director) |
| Adrian Peter Cox | (director) |
| Nicholas Hill Furlonge | (director) (retired 30 June 2011) |
| Jonathan George Gray | (director) |
| Alexander Gordon Kelso Hamilton | (non-executive director) |
| Dennis Holt | (non-executive director) (appointed 21 July 2011) |
| Neil Patrick Maidment | (director) |
| Padraic Joseph O'Connor | (non-executive director) |
| Andrew David Pomfret | (non-executive director) (resigned 21 July 2011) |
| Vincent Joseph Sheridan | (non-executive director) |
| Kenneth Paul Sroka | (non-executive director) |
| Rolf Albert Wilhelm Tolle | (non-executive director) |
| Clive Andrew Washbourn | (director) |
The board is complying with the provision on annual re-election of all directors introduced by the UK Corporate Governance Code.
Details of directors' service contracts and beneficial interests in the company's share capital are given in the directors' remuneration report on pages 57 to 72. Biographies of directors are set out on pages 50 to 51.
The company's compliance with corporate governance is disclosed in the corporate governance statement on pages 53 to 56.
A review of the financial performance of the group is set out on pages 30 to 40. The financial position of the group, its cash flows and borrowing facilities are included therein.
After reviewing the group's budgets and medium-term plans, the directors have a reasonable expectation that the group has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. For this reason they continue to adopt the going concern basis in preparing the accounts.
The company and group's policy for the year ending 31 December 2011, for all suppliers, is to fix terms of payment when agreeing the terms of each business transaction, to ensure the supplier is aware of those terms and to abide by the agreed terms of payment. The group had an average 50 days purchases included in trade creditors at 31 December 2011 (2010: 47 days).
The company's corporate, social and environmental policy is disclosed on pages 46 to 49.
No political donations were made by the group in either of the current or prior reporting period.
The group's approach to risk management is set out on pages 43 to 45 and further detail is contained in note 2 to the financial statements on pages 94 to 103.
As at 2 February 2012, the board had been notified of, or was otherwise aware of, the following shareholdings of 3% or more of the company's issued ordinary share capital:
| Number of ordinary shares | % | |
|---|---|---|
| Invesco Perpetual | 99,016,671 | 19.1 |
| Jupiter Asset Management | 41,339,387 | 8.0 |
| MFS Investment Management | 31,974,868 | 6.2 |
| Dimensional Fund Advisors | 21,504,578 | 4.1 |
| Legal & General Investment Management | 20,081,959 | 3.9 |
| Aberforth Partners | 18,308,668 | 3.5 |
| Aviva Investors | 18,036,052 | 3.5 |
The notice of the annual general meeting to be held at 12.00 noon on Tuesday, 27 March 2012 at 2 Northwood Park, Santry, Dublin is set out in the circular to shareholders.
At 6 February 2012 there are outstanding options to subscribe for 14.9m ordinary shares pursuant to employee share schemes, representing 2.9% of the issued share capital. If the authority to purchase shares were exercised in full, these options would represent 3.2% of the enlarged issued share capital.
KPMG have indicated their willingness to continue in office. Accordingly, a resolution to reappoint KPMG as auditors of the company will be proposed in the annual general meeting.
The directors who held office at the date of approval of this directors' report confirm that, so far as they are each aware, there is no relevant audit information of which the company's auditors are unaware; and each director has taken all the steps that he ought to have taken as a director to make himself aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the company's auditors are aware of that information.
By order of the board
Company secretary 2 Northwood Avenue Northwood Park Santry Demense Santry Dublin 9
6 February 2012
The directors are responsible for preparing the annual report and the group and parent company financial statements in accordance with applicable law and regulations.
The directors are required to prepare group and parent company financial statements for each financial year. They are required to prepare the group financial statements in accordance with IFRSs as adopted by the EU and applicable law and have elected to prepare the parent company financial statements on the same basis.
The directors must not approve the financial statements unless they are satisfied that they give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the group and parent company and of their profit or loss for that period. In preparing each of the group and parent company financial statements, the directors are required to:
The directors are responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that are sufficient to show and explain the parent company's transactions and disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the parent company and enable them to ensure that its financial statements comply with the Companies (Jersey) Law 1991. They have general responsibility for taking such steps as are reasonably open to them to safeguard the assets of the group and to prevent and detect fraud and other irregularities.
The directors are responsible for the preparation of the directors' report and corporate governance statement. The directors have also elected to prepare a directors' remuneration report on a voluntary basis.
The directors are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the corporate and financial information included on the company's website. Legislation in the UK and Jersey governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.
J G W Agnew Chairman
M L Bride Finance director
6 February 2012
We have audited the accompanying group and parent company financial statements (the ''financial statements'') of Beazley plc for the year ended 31 December 2011 which comprise the Group Income Statements, the Consolidated and Parent Company Statements of Comprehensive Income, the Consolidated and Parent Company Statement of Financial Position, the Consolidated and Parent Company Cash Flow Statements, the Consolidated and Parent Company Statements of Changes in Equity for the year then ended, and the related notes. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in the preparation of financial statements is applicable law and International Financial Reporting Standards as adopted by the EU.
In addition to our audit of the financial statements, the directors have engaged us to audit the information in the Report of the Remuneration Committee that is described as having been audited, which the directors have decided to prepare (in addition to that required to be prepared) as if the Company were required to comply with the requirements of Schedule 8 to the UK Companies Act 2006 The Large and Medium-sized Companies and Groups (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 (SI 2008 No. 410) and as if the company were a continuation of the previous holding company Beazley Group plc (the 'Directors' Remuneration Report').
This report is made solely to the Company's members, as a body, in accordance with Article 113A of the Companies (Jersey) Law 1991 and, in respect of the separate opinion in relation to the Directors' Remuneration Report, on terms that have been agreed. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the Company's members those matters we are required to state to them in an auditor's report and, in respect of the separate opinion in relation to the Directors' Remuneration Report and reporting on corporate governance, those matters that we have agreed to state to them in our report, and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the Company and the Company's members as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.
As explained more fully in the Statement of Directors' Responsibilities set out on page 76, the directors are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view. Our responsibility is to audit, and express an opinion on, the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and International Standards on Auditing (UK and Ireland). Those standards require us to comply with the Auditing Practices Board's Ethical Standards for Auditors.
We also report to you whether the part of the Report of the Remuneration Committee to be audited has been properly prepared as if the Company were required to comply with the requirements of UK company law.
An audit involves obtaining evidence about the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements sufficient to give reasonable assurance that the financial statements are free from material misstatement, whether caused by fraud or error. This includes an assessment of: whether the accounting policies are appropriate to the Company's circumstances and have been consistently applied and adequately disclosed; the reasonableness of significant accounting estimates made by the directors; and the overall presentation of the financial statements. In addition, we read all the financial and non-financial information in the Annual Report to identify material inconsistencies with the audited financial statements. If we become aware of any apparent material misstatements or inconsistencies we consider the implications for our report.
In our opinion:
We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters.
The Companies (Jersey) Law 1991 requires us to report to you if, in our opinion:
Under the listing rules of the Financial Services Authority we are required to review:
• the directors statement, set out on page 74 in relation to going concerns; and • the part of the corporate governance statements on page 53 relating to the company's compliance with the provisions of the UK corporate governance code specified for our review.
Brian Clavin
For and on behalf of KPMG Chartered Accountants and Recognised Auditors 1 Harbourmaster Place, International Financial Services Centre, Dublin 1, Ireland
6 February 2012
for the year ended 31 December 2011
| Notes | 2011 \$m |
2010 \$m |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross premiums written | 3 | 1,712.5 | 1,741.6 |
| Written premiums ceded to reinsurers | (338.5) | (339.5) | |
| Net premiums written | 3 | 1,374.0 | 1,402.1 |
| Change in gross provision for unearned premiums | 20.6 | 38.4 | |
| Reinsurer's share of change in the provision for unearned premiums | (9.6) | (35.3) | |
| Change in net provision for unearned premiums | 11.0 | 3.1 | |
| Net earned premiums | 3 | 1,385.0 | 1,405.2 |
| Net investment income | 4 | 39.3 | 37.5 |
| Other income | 5 | 28.1 | 28.1 |
| 67.4 | 65.6 | ||
| Revenue | 1,452.4 | 1,470.8 | |
| Insurance claims | 1,168.9 | 860.6 | |
| Insurance claims recoverable from reinsurers | (318.4) | (122.4) | |
| Net insurance claims | 3 | 850.5 | 738.2 |
| Expenses for the acquisition of insurance contracts | 3 | 390.7 | 381.4 |
| Administrative expenses | 126.6 | 119.2 | |
| Foreign exchange loss/(gain) | 3 | 4.1 | (34.6) |
| Operating expenses | 521.4 | 466.0 | |
| Expenses | 3 | 1,371.9 | 1,204.2 |
| Share of loss in associate | 14 | (1.0) | (0.9) |
| Results of operating activities | 79.5 | 265.7 | |
| Finance costs | 8 | (16.8) | (14.9) |
| Profit before income tax | 62.7 | 250.8 | |
| Income tax credit/(expense) | 9 | 3.1 | (33.8) |
| Profit for the year attributable to equity shareholders | 65.8 | 217.0 | |
| Earnings per share (cents per share): | |||
| Basic | 10 | 13.0 | 42.1 |
| Diluted | 10 | 12.4 | 40.2 |
| Earnings per share (pence per share): | |||
| Basic | 10 | 8.1 | 27.4 |
| Diluted | 10 | 7.7 | 26.1 |
for the year ended 31 December 2011
| 2011 \$m |
2010 \$m |
|
|---|---|---|
| Group | ||
| Profit for the year attributable to equity shareholders | 65.8 | 217.0 |
| Other comprehensive income | ||
| Change in net investment hedge | – | (5.4) |
| Foreign exchange translation differences | 2.5 | 12.6 |
| Reversal of exceptional foreign exchange gain | – | (33.7) |
| Foreign exchange gain arising on change in presentational currency | – | (22.0) |
| Total other comprehensive income | 2.5 | (48.5) |
| Total comprehensive income recognised | 68.3 | 168.5 |
for the year ended 31 December 2011
| 2011 \$m |
2010 \$m |
|
|---|---|---|
| Company | ||
| Profit for the year attributable to equity shareholders | 76.2 | 59.6 |
| Other comprehensive income | ||
| Foreign exchange translation differences | – | (44.3) |
| Total other comprehensive income | – | (44.3) |
| Total comprehensive income recognised | 76.2 | 15.3 |
for the year ended 31 December 2011
| Notes | Share capital \$m |
Share premium \$m |
Foreign currency translation reserve \$m |
Other reserves \$m |
Retained earnings \$m |
Total \$m |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group | |||||||
| Balance at 1 January 2010 | 42.6 | 0.5 | (42.5) | (25.9) | 1,021.2 | 995.9 | |
| Total comprehensive income | |||||||
| recognised | – | – | (48.5) | – | 217.0 | 168.5 | |
| Dividends paid | – | – | – | – | (55.5) | (55.5) | |
| Issue of shares | 21 | 0.1 | 0.2 | – | – | – | 0.3 |
| Equity settled share based payments | 22 | – | – | – | 9.1 | – | 9.1 |
| Acquisition of own shares in trust | 22 | – | – | – | (6.5) | – | (6.5) |
| Purchase of treasury shares | 22 | – | – | – | (28.9) | – | (28.9) |
| Balance at 31 December 2010 | 42.7 | 0.7 | (91.0) | (52.2) | 1,182.7 | 1,082.9 | |
| Total comprehensive income | |||||||
| recognised | – | – | 2.5 | – | 65.8 | 68.3 | |
| Dividends paid | – | – | – | – | (82.8) | (82.8) | |
| Issue of shares | 21 | 0.1 | 0.4 | – | – | – | 0.5 |
| Equity settled share based payments | 22 | – | – | – | 9.3 | – | 9.3 |
| Acquisition of own shares in trust | 22 | – | – | – | (6.0) | – | (6.0) |
| Purchase of treasury shares | 22 | – | – | – | (1.2) | – | (1.2) |
| Balance at 31 December 2011 | 42.8 | 1.1 | (88.5) | (50.1) | 1,165.7 | 1,071.0 |
for the year ended 31 December 2011
| Foreign | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Notes | Share capital \$m |
Share premium \$m |
currency translation reserve \$m |
Other reserves \$m |
Retained earnings \$m |
Total \$m |
|
| Company | |||||||
| Balance at 1 January 2010 | 42.6 | 0.5 | 8.4 | (35.1) | 777.8 | 794.2 | |
| Total comprehensive income recognised | – | – | (44.3) | – | 59.6 | 15.3 | |
| Dividends paid | – | – | – | – | (55.5) | (55.5) | |
| Issue of shares | 21 | 0.1 | 0.2 | – | – | – | 0.3 |
| Equity settled share based payments | 22 | – | – | – | 9.1 | – | 9.1 |
| Acquisition of own shares in trust | 22 | – | – | – | (6.5) | – | (6.5) |
| Purchase of treasury shares | 22 | – | – | – | (28.9) | – | (28.9) |
| Balance at 31 December 2010 | 42.7 | 0.7 | (35.9) | (61.4) | 781.9 | 728.0 | |
| Total comprehensive income recognised | – | – | – | – | 76.2 | 76.2 | |
| Dividends paid | – | – | – | – | (82.8) | (82.8) | |
| Issue of shares | 21 | 0.1 | 0.4 | – | – | – | 0.5 |
| Equity settled share based payments | 22 | – | – | – | 9.3 | – | 9.3 |
| Acquisition of own shares in trust | 22 | – | – | – | (6.0) | – | (6.0) |
| Purchase of treasury shares | 22 | – | – | – | (1.2) | – | (1.2) |
| Balance at 31 December 2011 | 42.8 | 1.1 | (35.9) | (59.3) | 775.3 | 724.0 |
as at 31 December 2011
| Group Company Group Company Notes \$m \$m \$m \$m Assets Intangible assets 12 130.7 – 117.0 – Plant and equipment 13 7.1 1.4 9.6 1.7 Investment in subsidiaries 31 – 747.2 – 747.2 Investment in associates 14 8.9 1.4 6.5 1.4 Deferred acquisition costs 15 159.7 – 164.0 – Deferred tax asset 28 12.5 – 9.5 – Retirement benefit asset 27 4.6 – 3.1 – Current income tax asset 9.8 – 26.4 – Reinsurance assets 19,24 1,197.9 – 1,034.9 – Financial assets 16 3,356.8 – 3,097.3 – Insurance receivables 18 558.7 – 527.1 – Other receivables 21.9 – 33.9 0.5 Cash and cash equivalents* 20 650.1 2.5 745.0 4.0 Total assets 6,118.7 752.5 5,774.3 754.8 Equity Share capital 21 42.8 42.8 42.7 42.7 Share premium 1.1 1.1 0.7 0.7 Foreign currency translation reserve (88.5) (35.9) (91.0) (35.9) Other reserves 22 (50.1) (59.3) (52.2) (61.4) 775.3 Retained earnings 1,165.7 1,182.7 781.9 Total equity 1,071.0 724.0 1,082.9 728.0 Liabilities Insurance liabilities 24 4,334.6 – 4,046.8 – Financial liabilities 16,25 266.9 – 268.2 – Other payables 26 366.0 28.5 285.4 26.8 Deferred tax liabilities 28 80.2 – 91.0 – Total liabilities 5,047.7 28.5 4,691.4 26.8 |
2011 | 2010 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total equity and liabilities | 6,118.7 | 752.5 | 5,774.3 | 754.8 |
*The composition of group cash and cash equivalents and financial assets have been restated as at 31 December 2010 (see note 20)..
The financial statements were approved by the board of directors on 6 February 2012 and were signed on its behalf by:
J G W Agnew Chairman
M L Bride Finance director
6 February 2012
for the year ended 31 December 2011
| 2011 | 2010 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group | Company | Group* | Company | |||
| Notes | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | ||
| Cash flow from operating activities | ||||||
| Profit before income tax | 62.7 | 76.2 | 250.8 | 59.6 | ||
| Adjustments for: | ||||||
| Amortisation of intangibles | 12 | 11.1 | – | 3.5 | ||
| Equity settled share based compensation | 23 | 9.3 | 9.3 | 9.1 | 9.1 | |
| Net fair value losses/(gains) on financial assets | (6.3) | – | (6.2) | – | ||
| Loss on disposal of plant and equipment | – | – | 0.3 | – | ||
| Loss in associate | 14 | 1.0 | – | 0.9 | – | |
| Depreciation of plant and equipment | 13 | 3.8 | 0.3 | 4.2 | 0.4 | |
| Increase in insurance and other liabilities | 367.1 | 1.7 | 19.2 | 26.8 | ||
| (Increase)/decrease in insurance, reinsurance and other | ||||||
| receivables | (182.6) | 0.5 | 83.8 | 0.3 | ||
| Decrease/(increase) in deferred acquisition costs | 4.3 | – | (8.5) | – | ||
| Financial income | 4 | (64.8) | – | (60.2) | – | |
| Financial expense | 8 | 16.8 | – | 14.9 | – | |
| Income tax received/(paid) | 5.9 | – | (26.2) | – | ||
| Contribution to pension fund | (1.6) | – | (1.5) | – | ||
| Net cash from operating activities | 226.7 | 88.0 | 284.1 | 96.2 | ||
| Cash flow from investing activities | ||||||
| Purchase of plant and equipment | 13 | (1.0) | – | (2.0) | (1.6) | |
| Purchase of syndicate capacity | 12 | (1.4) | – | (0.2) | – | |
| Acquisition of subsidiary (net of cash acquired) | (3.8) | – | – | – | ||
| Sale of business unit | 5.0 | – | – | – | ||
| Expenditure on software development | 12 | (11.1) | – | (7.9) | – | |
| Purchase of investments* | (3,912.4) | – | (5,042.7) | – | ||
| Proceeds from sale of investments | 3,649.2 | – | 4,799.9 | – | ||
| Investment in associate | 14 | (3.4) | – | (6.0) | – | |
| Interest and dividends received | 64.8 | – | 60.2 | – | ||
| Net cash used in investing activities | (214.1) | – | (198.7) | (1.6) | ||
| Cash flow from financing activities | ||||||
| Proceeds from issue of shares | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.3 | ||
| Purchase of treasury shares | 22 | (1.2) | (1.2) | (28.9) | (28.9) | |
| Acquisition of own shares in trust | 22 | (6.0) | (6.0) | (6.5) | (6.5) | |
| Interest paid | (16.8) | – | (14.9) | – | ||
| Dividends paid | (82.8) | (82.8) | (55.5) | (55.5) | ||
| Net cash used in financing activities | (106.3) | (89.5) | (105.5) | (90.6) | ||
| Net (decrease)/increase in cash and cash equivalents | ||||||
| (93.7) | (1.5) | (20.1) | 4.0 | |||
| Cash and cash equivalents at beginning of year* | 745.0 | 4.0 | 813.4 | – | ||
| Effect of exchange rate changes on cash and cash equivalents | (1.2) | – | (48.3) | – | ||
| Cash and cash equivalents at end of year | 20 | 650.1 | 2.5 | 745.0 | 4.0 |
*The composition of group cash and cash equivalents and the related effects on the purchase of investments have been restated as at 31 December 2010 (see note 20).
Beazley plc is a company incorporated in Jersey and domiciled in Ireland. The group financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2011 comprise the parent company and its subsidiaries and the group's interest in associates.
Both the financial statements of the parent company, Beazley plc, and the group financial statements have been prepared and approved by the directors in accordance with IFRSs as adopted by the EU ('Adopted IFRSs').
The accounting policies set out below have, unless otherwise stated, been applied consistently to all periods presented in these group financial statements.
All new standards and interpretations released by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) have been considered and of these the following new and amended standards have been adopted by the group during the period:
IFRS 7 (amended), 'Financial instruments: Disclosures'. The amendments require an explicit statement that the interaction between qualitative and quantitative disclosures better enables users to evaluate an entity's exposure to risks arising from financial instruments.
IAS 1 (amended), 'Presentation of financial statements'. IAS 1 is amended to clarify that reconciliation from opening to closing balances is required to be presented in the statement of changes in equity for each component of equity. IAS 1 is also amended to allow the analysis of the individual other comprehensive income line items by component of equity to be presented in the notes.
IAS 32 (amended), 'Financial instruments: Presentation'. The amendment requires that rights, options or warrants to acquire a fixed number of the entity's own equity instruments for a fixed amount of any currency are equity instruments if the entity offers the rights, options or warrants pro rata to all of its existing owners of the same class of its own non-derivative equity instruments.
IFRIC 19,' Extinguishing financial liabilities with equity instruments'. IFRIC 19 deals with measurement of equity instruments issued in a debt for equity swap. It addresses the accounting for such a transaction by the debtor only.
IFRIC 14 (amended), 'Prepayment of a minimum funding requirement'. The amendment to IFRIC 14 removes unintended consequences arising from the treatment of prepayments when there is a minimum funding requirement (MFR). The amendment results in prepayments of contributions in certain circumstances being recognised as an asset rather than an expense.
In addition, the following is a list of standards that are in issue but are not effective in 2011, and have not yet been adopted in the EU, together with the effective date of application to the group:
The implications of these standards and interpretations are under review.
The consolidated financial statements are prepared using the historical cost convention except that financial investments and derivative financial instruments are stated at their fair value. All amounts presented are stated in US dollars and millions, unless stated otherwise.
The financial statements of Beazley plc have been prepared on a going concern basis. The directors of the company have a reasonable expectation that the group and the company have adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future.
Reclassifications of short-term investments have been made between cash and cash equivalents and financial investments resulting in a restatement of balances in the statement of financial position and statement of cash flows for the comparative period. Full details are set out in note 20.
The preparation of financial statements requires management to make judgements, estimates and assumptions that affect the application of accounting policies and reported amounts of assets, liabilities, income and expenses. Actual results may differ from these estimates.
Estimates and underlying assumptions are reviewed on an ongoing basis. Revisions to accounting estimates are recognised in the period in which the estimate is revised and in any future periods affected.
In particular, information about significant areas of estimation uncertainty and critical judgements in applying accounting policies that have the most significant effect on the amounts recognised in the financial statements are described in this statement of accounting policies and specifically in note 24 (on insurance liabilities and reinsurance assets).
The most critical estimate included within the group's financial position is the estimate for losses incurred but not reported. The total estimate as at 31 December 2011 is \$1,697m (2010: \$1,783m) and is included within total insurance liabilities in the statement of financial position.
Subsidiary undertakings, which are those entities in which the group, directly or indirectly, has the power to exercise control over financial and operating policies so as to obtain benefits from their activities, have been consolidated. They are consolidated from the date on which control is transferred to the group and cease to be consolidated from the date on which control ends.
The group has used the acquisition method of accounting for the purchase of subsidiaries. Under purchase accounting, the cost of acquisition is measured as the fair value of assets given, shares issued or liabilities undertaken at the date of acquisition directly attributable to the acquisition. The excess of the cost of an acquisition over the net fair value of the identifiable assets, liabilities and contingent liabilities of the subsidiary acquired is recorded as goodwill. The accounting treatment of acquisition expenses per IFRS 3 (revised) has changed; however as the group applies the revised standard prospectively to all business combinations from 1 January 2010 there is no impact on accounting for the acquisition of subsidiaries made in previous periods.
For all business combinations from 1 January 2010:
Financial investments made by the parent company in subsidiary undertakings and associates are stated at cost in its separate financial statements and are reviewed for impairment when events or changes in circumstances indicate the carrying value may be impaired.
Certain group subsidiaries underwrite as corporate members of Lloyd's on syndicates managed by Beazley Furlonge Limited. In view of the several liability of underwriting members at Lloyd's for the transactions of syndicates in which they participate, only attributable shares of transactions, assets and liabilities of those syndicates are included in the group financial statements.
Associates are those entities in which the group has power to exert significant influence but which it does not control. Significant influence is generally presumed if the group has between 20% and 50% of voting rights.
Investments in associates are accounted for using the equity method of accounting. Under this method the investments are initially measured at cost and the group's share of post-acquisition profits or losses is recognised in the income statement. Therefore the cumulative post-acquisition movements in the associates' net assets are adjusted against the cost of the investment.
When the group's share of losses equals or exceeds the carrying amount of the associate, the carrying amount is reduced to nil and recognition for the losses is discontinued except to the extent that the group has incurred obligations in respect of the associate.
Equity accounting is discontinued when the group no longer has significant influence over the investment.
All intercompany transactions, balances and unrealised gains or losses on transactions between group companies are eliminated in the consolidated group accounts. Transactions and balances between the group and associates are not eliminated.
Items included in the financial statements of the parent and the subsidiaries are measured using the currency of the primary economic environment in which the relevant entity operates (the 'functional currency'). The consolidated financial statements are presented in US dollars, being the functional currency of the parent and its main trading subsidiaries.
Following the change in functional currency of Beazley plc and its main trading subsidiaries to US dollars on 1 April 2010 and the change in presentation currency to US dollars on 1 January 2010, all comparative information is stated in US dollars in accordance with the guidance defined in IAS 21. For further information on this change please refer to the 2010 annual report which gives a detailed explanation of the main factors that led to this change.
Foreign currency transactions are translated into the functional currency using average exchange rates applicable to the period in which the transactions take place and where the group considers these to be a reasonable approximation of the transaction rate. Foreign exchange gains and losses resulting from the settlement of such transactions and from translation at the period end of monetary assets and liabilities denominated in foreign currencies are recognised in the income statement. Non-monetary items recorded at historical cost in foreign currencies are translated using the exchange rate on the date of the initial transaction.
The results and financial position of the group companies that have a functional currency different from the presentation currency are translated into the presentation currency as follows:
On disposal of foreign operations cumulative exchange differences previously recognised in other comprehensive income are recognised in the income statement as part of the gain or loss on disposal.
Insurance contracts (including inwards reinsurance contracts) are defined as those containing significant insurance risk. Insurance risk is considered significant if, and only if, an insured event could cause Beazley to pay significant additional benefits in any scenario, excluding scenarios that lack commercial substance. Such contracts remain insurance contracts until all rights and obligations are extinguished or expire.
Gross premiums written represent premiums on business commencing in the financial year together with adjustments to premiums written in previous accounting periods and estimates for premiums from contracts entered into during the course of the year. Gross premiums written are stated before deduction of brokerage, taxes, duties levied on premiums and other deductions.
A provision for unearned premiums (gross of reinsurance) represents that part of the gross premiums written that is estimated will be earned in the following financial periods. It is calculated using the daily pro-rata method where the premium is apportioned over the period of risk.
Acquisition costs comprise brokerage, premium levy and staff-related costs of the underwriters acquiring new business and renewing existing contracts. The proportion of acquisition costs in respect of unearned premiums is deferred at the reporting date and recognised in later periods when the related premiums are earned.
These include the cost of claims and claims handling expenses paid during the period, together with the movements in provisions for outstanding claims, claims incurred but not reported (IBNR) and claims handling provisions. The provision for claims comprises amounts set aside for claims advised and IBNR, including claims handling expenses.
The IBNR amount is based on estimates calculated using widely accepted actuarial techniques which are reviewed quarterly by the group actuary and annually by Beazley's independent syndicate reporting actuary. The techniques generally use projections, based on past experience of the development of claims over time, to form a view on the likely ultimate claims to be experienced. For more recent underwriting years, regard is given to the variations in the business portfolio accepted and the underlying terms and conditions. Thus, the critical assumptions used when estimating provisions are that past experience is a reasonable predictor of likely future claims development and that the rating and business portfolio assumptions are a fair reflection of the likely level of ultimate claims to be incurred for the more recent years.
At each reporting date, liability adequacy tests are performed to ensure the adequacy of the claims liabilities net of DAC and unearned premium reserves. In performing these tests, current best estimates of future contractual cash flows, claims handling and administration expenses as well as investment income from the assets backing such liabilities are used. Any deficiency is immediately charged to the income statement initially by writing off DAC and by subsequently establishing a provision for losses arising from liability adequacy tests ('unexpired risk provision').
These are contracts entered into by the group with reinsurers under which the group is compensated for losses on contracts issued by the group and that meet the definition of an insurance contract. Insurance contracts entered into by the group under which the contract holder is another insurer (inwards reinsurance) are included with insurance contracts.
Any benefits to which the group is entitled under its reinsurance contracts held are recognised as reinsurance assets. These assets consist of balances due from reinsurers and include reinsurers' share of provisions for claims. These balances are based on calculated amounts of outstanding claims and projections for IBNR, net of estimated irrecoverable amounts having regard to the reinsurance programme in place for the class of business, the claims experience for the period and the current security rating of the reinsurer involved. Reinsurance liabilities are primarily premiums payable for reinsurance contracts and are recognised as an expense when due.
The group assesses its reinsurance assets for impairment. If there is objective evidence of impairment, then the carrying amount is reduced to its recoverable amount and the impairment loss is recognised in the income statement.
Revenue consists of net earned premium, net investment income, profit commissions earned and managing agent's fees.
Managing agent's fees are recognised as the services are provided. Profit commissions are recognised as profit is earned.
Dividend distribution to the shareholders of the group is recognised in the period in which the dividends are paid as a first interim dividend or as a second interim dividend approved by the group's shareholders at the group's annual general meeting.
All plant and equipment is recorded at cost less accumulated depreciation and any impairment losses. Depreciation is calculated using the straight-line method to allocate the cost of the assets to their residual values over their estimated useful lives as follows:
| Fixtures and fittings | Three to ten years |
|---|---|
| Computer equipment | Three years |
These assets' residual value and useful lives are reviewed at each reporting date and adjusted if appropriate.
The carrying values of plant and equipment are reviewed for impairment when events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying value may be impaired. If any such condition exists, the recoverable amount of the asset is estimated in order to determine the extent of impairment and the difference is charged to the income statement.
Goodwill represents the excess of the cost of an acquisition over the fair value of the group's share of the fair value of the identifiable assets, liabilities and contingent liabilities of the acquired subsidiary at the date of acquisition. Goodwill is carried at cost less accumulated impairment losses. The determination of the amount to be treated as goodwill per IFRS 3 (revised 2008) has changed; however the group decided to apply the revised standard prospectively to all business combinations from 1 January 2010 and therefore there is no impact on accounting for the acquisition of subsidiaries made in prior periods.
Goodwill has an indefinite life and is annually tested for impairment. Goodwill is allocated to each cash-generating unit (being the group's operating segments) for the purpose of impairment testing. Goodwill is impaired when the net carrying amount of the relevant cash-generating unit (CGU) exceeds its recoverable amount, being the higher of its value in use and fair value less costs to sell. Value in use is defined as the present value of the future cash flows expected to be derived from the CGU. On transition to IFRS at 1 January 2004, any goodwill previously amortised or written off was not reinstated.
In respect of equity accounted associates, the carrying amount of any goodwill is included in the carrying amount of the associate, and any impairment is allocated to the carrying amount of the associate as a whole.
The syndicate capacity represents the cost of purchasing the group's participation in the combined syndicates. The capacity is capitalised at cost in the statement of financial position. It has an indefinite useful life and is carried at cost less accumulated impairment. It is annually tested for impairment by reference to the expected future profit streams to be earned by those syndicates in which the group participates, namely 2623, 3622 and 3623, and provision is made for any impairment.
Licences have an indefinite useful life and are initially recorded at fair value. Licences are annually tested for impairment and provision is made for any impairment when the recoverable amount, being the higher of its value in use and fair value, is less than the carrying value.
Costs that are directly associated with the development of identifiable and unique software products and that are anticipated to generate economic benefits exceeding costs beyond one year, are recognised as intangible assets. Costs include external consultants' fees, certain qualifying internal staff costs and other costs incurred to develop software programs. These costs are amortised over their estimated useful life (three years) on a straight-line basis subject to impairment. Other non-qualifying costs are expensed as incurred.
Renewal rights comprise future profits relating to insurance contracts acquired and the expected renewal of those contracts. The costs directly attributable to acquire the renewal rights are recognised as intangible assets where they can be measured reliably and it is probable that they will be recovered by directly related future profits. These costs are subject to impairment and are amortised on a straight-line basis, based on the estimated useful life of the assets which is estimated to be between five and ten years.
Financial instruments are recognised in the statement of financial position at such time that the group becomes a party to the contractual provisions of the financial instrument. A financial asset is derecognised when the contractual rights to receive cash flows from the financial assets expire, or where the financial assets have been transferred, together with substantially all the risks and rewards of ownership. Financial liabilities are derecognised if the group's obligations specified in the contract expire, are discharged or cancelled.
Purchases and sales of financial assets are recognised on the trade date, which is the date the group commits to purchase or sell the asset.
On acquisition of a financial asset, the group is required to classify the asset into one of the following categories: financial assets at fair value through the income statement, loans and receivables, held to maturity and available for sale. The group does not make use of the held to maturity and available for sale classifications.
Except for derivative financial instruments, all financial assets are designated as fair value through the income statement upon initial recognition because they are managed and their performance is evaluated on a fair value basis. Information about these financial assets is provided internally on a fair value basis to the group's key management. The group's investment strategy is to invest and evaluate their performance with reference to their fair values.
Loans and receivables are non-derivative financial assets with fixed or determinable payments that are not quoted in an active market. Loans and receivables are carried at amortised cost less any impairment losses.
Fair value is the amount for which an asset could be exchanged, or a liability settled, between knowledgeable, willing parties in an arm's length transaction on the measurement date.
When available, the group measures the fair value of an instrument using quoted prices in an active market for that instrument. A market is regarded as active if quoted prices are readily and regularly available and represent actual and regularly occurring market transactions on an arm's length basis.
If a market for a financial instrument is not active, the group establishes fair value using a valuation technique. Valuation techniques include using recent arm's length transactions between knowledgeable, willing parties (if available), reference to the current fair value of other instruments that are substantially the same, discounted cash flow analyses and option pricing models. The chosen valuation technique makes maximum use of market inputs, relies as little as possible on estimates specific to the group, incorporates all factors that market participants would consider in setting a price, and is consistent with accepted economic methodologies for pricing financial instruments. Inputs to valuation techniques reasonably represent market expectations and measures of the risk-return factors inherent in the financial instrument. The group calibrates valuation techniques and tests them for validity using prices from observable current market transactions in the same instrument or based on other available observable market data.
The best evidence of the fair value of a financial instrument at initial recognition is the transaction price, ie the fair value of the consideration given or received, unless the fair value of that instrument is evidenced by comparison with other observable current market transactions in the same instrument (ie without modification or repackaging) or based on a valuation technique whose variables include only data from observable markets. When transaction price provides the best evidence of fair value at initial recognition, the financial instrument is initially measured at the transaction price and any difference between this price and the value initially obtained from a valuation model is subsequently recognised in profit or loss depending on the individual facts and circumstances of the transaction but not later than when the valuation is supported wholly by observable market data or the transaction is closed out.
Assets and long positions are measured at a bid price; liabilities and short positions are measured at an asking price. Where the group has positions with offsetting risks, mid-market prices are used to measure the offsetting risk positions and a bid or asking price adjustment is applied only to the net open position as appropriate. Fair values reflect the credit risk of the instrument and include adjustments to take account of the credit risk of the group entity and counterparty where appropriate. Fair value estimates obtained from models are adjusted for any other factors, such as liquidity risk or model uncertainties, to the extent that the group believes a third-party market participant would take them into account in pricing a transaction.
Upon initial recognition, attributable transaction costs relating to financial instruments at fair value through the income statement are recognised in the income statement when incurred. Financial assets at fair value through the income statement are measured at fair value, and changes therein are recognised in the income statement. Net changes in the fair value of financial assets at fair value through the income statement exclude interest and dividend income, as these items are accounted for separately as set out below.
The group participates in a number of hedge funds and related financial instruments for which there are no available quoted market prices. The valuation of these hedge funds is based on fair value techniques (as described above). The fair value of our hedge fund portfolio is calculated by reference to the underlying net asset values (NAVs) of each of the individual funds. Consideration is also given in valuing these funds to any restriction applied to distributions, the existence of side pocket provisions, and the timing of the latest available valuations.
Insurance receivables and payables are recognised when due. These include amounts due to and from agents, brokers and insurance contract holders. Insurance receivables are classified as 'loans and receivables' as they are non-derivative financial assets with fixed or determinable payments that are not quoted on an active market. Insurance receivables are measured at amortised cost less any provision for impairments. Insurance payables are stated at amortised cost.
Other receivables principally consist of prepayments, accrued income and sundry debtors and are carried at amortised cost less any impairment losses.
Investment income consists of dividends, interest, realised and unrealised gains and losses and foreign exchange gains and losses on financial assets at fair value through the income statement. Dividends on equity securities are recorded as revenue on the ex-dividend date. Interest is recognised on an amortised cost basis using the effective interest rate method for financial assets at fair value through the income statement. The realised gains or losses on disposal of an investment are the difference between the proceeds and the original cost of the investment. Unrealised investment gains and losses represent the difference between the carrying value at the reporting date, and the carrying value at the previous period end or purchase value during the period.
Borrowings are initially recorded at fair value less transaction costs incurred. Subsequently borrowings are stated at amortised cost and interest is recognised in the income statement over the period of the borrowings using the effective interest method.
Finance costs comprise interest, fees paid for the arrangement of debt and letter of credit facilities and commissions charged for the utilisation of letters of credit. These costs are recognised in the income statements using the effective interest method.
Other payables are stated at amortised cost determined on the effective interest rate method.
Derivatives are initially recognised at fair value on the date on which a derivative contract is entered into and are subsequently remeasured at their fair value. The method of recognising the resulting fair value gains or losses depends on whether the derivative is designated as a hedging instrument and, if so, the nature of the item being hedged. Fair values are obtained from quoted market prices in active markets, recent market transactions, and valuation techniques which include discounted cash flow models. All derivatives are carried as assets when fair value is positive and as liabilities when fair value is negative.
The best evidence of fair value of a derivative at initial recognition is the transaction price.
The group designates certain derivatives as fair value hedges or net investment hedges.
The group documents at the inception of the transaction the relationship between hedging instruments and hedged items, as well as its risk management objective and strategy for undertaking various hedging transactions. The group also documents its assessment, both at hedge inception and on an ongoing basis, of whether the derivatives that are being used in hedging transactions are expected to be and have been highly effective in offsetting changes in fair values or cash flows of hedged items.
When a derivative is designated as a hedge of the change in fair value of a recognised asset or liability or a firm commitment, changes in the fair value of the derivative are recognised immediately in the income statement together with the changes in the fair value of the hedged item that are attributable to the hedged risk.
If the derivative expires or is sold, terminated, exercised, or no longer meets the criteria for fair value hedge accounting, or the designation is revoked, hedge accounting is discontinued. Any adjustment up to that point, to a hedged item for which the effective interest method is used, is amortised to profit or loss as part of the recalculated effective interest rate of the item over its remaining life.
No fair value hedges are utilised in 2011.
Any gain or loss on the hedging instrument relating to the effective portion of the hedge is recognised in other comprehensive income and presented within equity in other reserves; the gain or loss relating to the ineffective portion is recognised immediately in the income statement within 'net fair value gains/(losses) on financial investments' through the income statement.
Gains and losses accumulated in other comprehensive income are transferred to the income statement as part of the gain or loss on disposal of the foreign operation.
No net investment hedges are utilised in 2011.
The group assesses at each reporting date whether there is objective evidence that a financial asset or group of financial assets measured at amortised cost is impaired. A financial asset or group of financial assets is impaired and impairment losses are incurred only if there is objective evidence of impairment as a result of one or more events that have occurred after the initial recognition of the assets and that event has an impact on the estimated cash flows of the financial asset or group of financial assets that can be reliably estimated.
If there is objective evidence that impairment exists, the amount of the loss is measured as the difference between the asset's carrying amount and the value of the estimated future cash flows discounted at the financial asset's original effective interest rate. The amount of the loss is recognised in the income statement.
Cash and cash equivalents consist of cash at bank and in hand, deposits held at call with banks and other short-term highly liquid investments with maturities of three months or less from the date of acquisition.
Leases where a significant portion of the risks and rewards of ownership are retained by the lessor are classified as operating leases. Payments made for operating leases are charged to the income statement on a straight-line basis over the period of the lease.
The group operates a defined benefit pension plan that is now closed to future service accruals. The scheme is generally funded by payments from the group taking account of the recommendations of an independent qualified actuary. All employees now participate in a defined contribution pension funded by the group.
A defined benefit plan is a pension plan that defines an amount of pension benefit that an employee will receive on retirement, usually dependent on one or more factors like age, years of service and compensation. The pension costs are assessed using the projected unit credit method. Under this method the costs of providing pensions are charged to the income statement so as to spread the regular costs over the service lives of employees in accordance with the advice of the qualified actuary, who values the plans annually. The pension obligation is measured at the present value of the estimated future net cash flows and is stated net of plan assets.
Actuarial gains or losses arising subsequent to 1 January 2004 are accounted for using the 'corridor method'. Actuarial gains or losses at the end of the previous accounting periods that exceed 10% of the greater of the fair value of the plan assets or the present value of the gross defined benefit obligations in the scheme at that date are recognised in the income statement over the average remaining working lives of employees participating in the scheme.
Past service costs are recognised immediately in income, unless the changes to the pension plan are conditional on the employees remaining in service for a specified period of time (the 'vesting period'). In this case, the past service costs are amortised on a straight-line basis over the vesting period.
For the defined contribution plan, the group pays contributions to a privately administered pension plan. Once the contributions have been paid, the group has no further obligations. The group's contributions are charged to the income statement in the period to which they relate.
The group offers option plans over Beazley plc's ordinary shares to certain employees, including the SAYE scheme, details of which are included in the directors' remuneration report.
The group accounts for share compensation plans that were granted after 7 November 2002. The cost of providing share-based compensation is based on the fair value of the share options at grant date, which is recognised in the income statement over the vesting period of the share options and a corresponding entry is recognised in reserves. The fair value of the share options is determined using the Black Scholes method.
When the options are exercised, the proceeds received, net of any transaction costs, are credited to share capital (nominal value) and share premium.
Income tax on the profit or loss for the period comprises current and deferred tax. Income tax is recognised in the income statement except to the extent that it relates to items recognised in other comprehensive income or directly in equity, in which case it is recognised respectively in other comprehensive income or directly in equity.
Current tax is the expected tax payable on the taxable income for the year using tax rates enacted or substantively enacted at the year end reporting date and any adjustments to tax payable in respect of prior periods.
Deferred tax is provided, using the liability method, on temporary differences arising between the tax bases of assets and liabilities and their carrying amounts in the financial statements. The amount of deferred tax provided is based on the expected manner of realisation or settlement of the carrying amount of the assets and liabilities, using tax rates enacted or substantively enacted at the reporting date.
Deferred tax assets are recognised in the statement of financial position to the extent that it is probable that future taxable profit will be available against which the temporary differences can be utilised.
Basic earnings per share are calculated by dividing profit after tax available to shareholders by the weighted average number of ordinary shares in issue during the period.
For diluted earnings per share, the weighted average number of ordinary shares in issue is adjusted to assume conversion of all dilutive potential ordinary shares such as share options granted to employees.
The shares held in the employee share options plan (ESOP) and treasury shares are excluded from both the calculations, until such time as they vest unconditionally with the employees.
Provisions are recognised when the group has a present legal or constructive obligation as a result of a past event, it is probable that an outflow of resources of economic benefits will be required to settle the obligation, and a reliable estimate of the obligation can be made. Where the group expects a provision to be reimbursed, the reimbursement is recognised as a separate asset but only when the reimbursement is virtually certain.
Contingent liabilities are present obligations that are not recognised because it is not probable that an outflow of resources will be required to meet the liabilities or because the amount of the obligation cannot be measured with sufficient reliability.
The group has identified the risks arising from its activities and has established policies and procedures to manage these items in accordance with its risk appetite. The group categorises its risks into eight areas: insurance, asset, credit, liquidity, operational, group, regulatory and legal, and strategic risk. The first four relate to financial risks, and are detailed below. The sections below outline the group's risk appetite and explain how it defines and manages each category of risk.
The group's insurance business assumes the risk of loss from persons or organisations that are directly exposed to an underlying loss. Insurance risk arises from this risk transfer due to inherent uncertainties about the occurrence, amount and timing of insurance liabilities. The four key components of insurance risk are underwriting, reinsurance, claims management and reserving. Each element is considered below.
Underwriting risk comprises four elements that apply to all insurance products offered by the group:
We manage and model these four elements in the following three categories; attritional claims, large claims and catastrophe events.
The group's underwriting strategy is to seek a diverse and balanced portfolio of risks in order to limit the variability of outcomes. This is achieved by accepting a spread of business over time, segmented between different products, geography and size.
The annual business plans for each underwriting team reflect the group's underwriting strategy, and set out the classes of business, the territories and the industry sectors in which business is to be written. These plans are approved by the board and monitored by the monthly underwriting committee.
Our underwriters calculate premiums for risks written based on a range of criteria tailored specifically to each individual risk. These factors include but are not limited to the financial exposure, loss history, risk characteristics, limits, deductibles, terms and conditions and acquisition expenses.
The group also recognises that insurance events are, by their nature, random, and the actual number and size of events during any one year may vary from those estimated using established statistical techniques.
To address this, the group sets out the exposure that it is prepared to accept in certain territories to a range of events such as natural catastrophes and specific scenarios which may result in large industry losses. This is monitored through regular calculation of realistic disaster scenarios (RDS). The aggregate position is monitored at the time of underwriting a risk, and reports are regularly produced to highlight the key aggregations to which the group is exposed.
The group uses a number of modelling tools to monitor its exposures against the agreed risk appetite set and to simulate catastrophe losses in order to measure the effectiveness of its reinsurance programmes. Stress and scenario tests are also run using these models. The range of scenarios considered include natural catastrophes, marine, liability, political, terrorism and war events.
One of the largest types of event exposure relates to natural catastrophe events such as windstorm or earthquake. Where possible the group measures geographic accumulations and uses its knowledge of the business, historical loss behaviour and commercial catastrophe modelling software to assess the expected range of losses at different return periods. Upon application of the reinsurance coverage purchased, the key gross and net exposures are calculated on the basis of extreme events at a range of return periods.
The group's high-level catastrophe risk appetite is set by the board and the business plans of each team are determined within these parameters. The board may adjust these limits over time as conditions change. Currently, the group operates to a catastrophe risk appetite for a probabilistic 1-in-250 year US event of \$510m net of reinsurance.
Lloyd's has also defined its own specific set of realistic disaster scenario (RDS) events for which all syndicates with relevant exposures must report. Of these the three largest events which impact Beazley are:
| Unaudited | 2011 | 2010 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Modelled | Modelled | Modelled | Modelled | |
| PML (before) | PML (after) | PML (before) | PML (after) | |
| reinsurance) | reinsurance) | reinsurance) | reinsurance) | |
| Lloyd's prescribed natural catastrophe event | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m |
| San Francisco quake (\$78bn, 2010:\$78bn) | 600.3 | 224.2 | 712.0 | 265.7 |
| Gulf of Mexico windstorm (\$112bn, 2010:\$113bn) | 457.9 | 250.6 | 557.3 | 303.8 |
| Florida Pinellas windstorm (\$125bn, 2010:\$125bn) | 438.6 | 237.6 | 532.2 | 277.0 |
The exposures during 2011 have reduced across property and reinsurance in anticipation of the increase in risk appetite utilisation following the adoption of RMS v.11. The reduction in exposure in these regions have resulted in lower modelled losses for these specific events. With the adoption of RMS v.11, the RDS events for the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Pinellas scenarios have changed and are therefore different events to those used in 2010.
The net exposure of the group to each of these modelled events at a given point in time is a function of assumptions made about how, where and the magnitude of the event that occurs, the amount of business written that is exposed to each event and the reinsurance arrangements in place.
To manage underwriting exposures, the group has developed limits of authority and business plans which are binding upon all staff authorised to underwrite and are specific to underwriters, classes of business and industry. In 2011, the normal maximum gross probable maximum loss (PML) line that any one underwriter could commit the managed syndicates to was \$100m. In most cases, maximum lines for classes of business were much lower than this.
These authority limits are enforced through a comprehensive sign-off process for underwriting transactions including dual sign-off for all line underwriters and peer review for all risks exceeding individual underwriters' authority limits. Exception reports are also run regularly to monitor compliance.
All underwriters also have a right to refuse renewal or change the terms and conditions of insurance contracts upon renewal. Rate monitoring details, including limits, deductibles, exposures, terms and conditions and risk characteristics are also captured and the results are combined to monitor the rating environment for each class of business.
A proportion of the group's insurance risks are transacted by third parties under delegated underwriting authorities. Each third party is thoroughly vetted by our coverholder approval group before it can bind risks, and is subject to rigorous monitoring to maintain underwriting quality and confirm ongoing compliance with contractual guidelines.
In 2011, the group's business consisted of six operating divisions. The following table provides a breakdown of gross written premiums by division, and also provides a geographical split based on placement of risk.
| UK | US | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | (Lloyd's) | (Non-Lloyd's) | Total |
| Life, accident and health | 5% | – | 5% |
| Marine | 16% | – | 16% |
| Political risks and contingency | 6% | – | 6% |
| Property | 20% | 1% | 21% |
| Reinsurance | 10% | – | 10% |
| Specialty lines | 34% | 8% | 42% |
| Total | 91% | 9% | 100% |
| UK | US | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | (Lloyd's) | (Non-Lloyd's) | Total |
| Life, accident and health | 4% | – | 4% |
| Marine | 15% | – | 15% |
| Political risks and contingency | 6% | – | 6% |
| Property | 20% | 1% | 21% |
| Reinsurance | 10% | – | 10% |
| Specialty lines | 35% | 9% | 44% |
| Total | 90% | 10% | 100% |
Reinsurance risk to the group arises where reinsurance contracts put in place to reduce gross insurance risk do not perform as anticipated, result in coverage disputes or prove inadequate in terms of the vertical or horizontal limits purchased. Failure of a reinsurer to pay a valid claim is considered a credit risk which is detailed separately below.
The group's reinsurance programmes complement the underwriting team business plans and seek to protect group capital from an adverse volume or volatility of claims on both a per risk and per event basis. In some cases the group deems it more economic to hold capital than purchase reinsurance. These decisions are regularly reviewed as an integral part of the business planning and performance monitoring process.
The reinsurance security committee (RSC) examines and approves all reinsurers to ensure that they possess suitable security. The group's ceded reinsurance team ensures that these guidelines are followed, undertakes the administration of reinsurance contracts and monitors and instigates our responses to any erosion of the reinsurance programmes.
Claims management risk may arise within the group in the event of inaccurate or incomplete case reserves and claims settlements, poor service quality or excessive claims handling costs. These risks may damage the group brand and undermine its ability to win and retain business, or incur punitive damages. These risks can occur at any stage of the claims life cycle.
The group's claims teams are focused on delivering quality, reliability and speed of service to both internal and external clients. Their aim is to adjust and process claims in a fair, efficient and timely manner, in accordance with the policy's terms and conditions, the regulatory environment, and the business' broader interests. Prompt and accurate case reserves are set for all known claims liabilities, including provisions for expenses.
Reserving and ultimate reserves risk occurs within the group where established insurance liabilities are insufficient through inaccurate forecasting, or where there is inadequate allowance for expenses and reinsurance bad debts in provisions.
To manage reserving and ultimate reserves risk, our actuarial team uses a range of recognised techniques to project gross premiums written, monitor claims development patterns and stress-test ultimate insurance liability balances. An external independent actuary also performs an annual review to produce a statement of actuarial opinion for reporting entities within the group.
The objective of the group's reserving policy is to produce accurate and reliable estimates that are consistent over time and across classes of business. The estimates of gross premiums written and claims prepared by the actuarial department are used through a formal quarterly peer review process to independently test the integrity of the estimates produced by the underwriting teams for each class of business. These meetings are attended by senior management, senior underwriters, actuarial, claims, and finance representatives.
Asset risk arises where the value of assets and liabilities changes as a result of movements in foreign exchange rates, interest rates and market prices.
The functional currency of Beazley plc and its main trading entities is the US dollar and the presentation currency in which the group reports its consolidated results is the US dollar. The effect of this on foreign exchange risk is that the group is exposed to fluctuations in exchange rates for non-dollar denominated transactions and net assets.
The group deals in four main currencies: US dollars, UK sterling, Canadian dollars and euros. Transactions in all currencies are converted to US dollars on initial recognition and revalued at the reporting date. Remaining foreign exchange risk is still actively managed as described on the next page.
In 2011, the group managed its foreign exchange risk by periodically assessing its non-dollar exposures and hedging these to a tolerable level while targeting net assets to be entirely US dollar denominated. As part of this hedging strategy, exchange rate derivatives were used to rebalance currency exposure across the group. In particular we hedged our potentially significant exposure to the Japanese yen following the Tohoku earthquake in Japan. Details of all foreign currency derivative contracts entered into with external parties are disclosed in note 17. On a forward looking basis an assessment is made of expected future exposure development and appropriate currency trades put in place to reduce risk.
With effect from January 2010 Beazley took the decision to match the group's underwriting capital by currency to the principal underlying currencies of its written premiums. This helps to mitigate the risk that the group's capital required to underwrite business is not materially affected by any future movements in exchange rates. To achieve this, the group has increased the US dollar component of its capital base (Funds at Lloyd's) by \$492.7m since the start of 2010 with an equivalent decrease in the sterling component.
The group also has subsidiaries with functional currencies that are different from the presentation currency. The effect of this on foreign exchange risk is that the group is exposed to fluctuations in exchange rates for US dollar denominated transactions and net assets arising in those foreign currency subsidiaries. It also gives rise to a currency translation exposure to UK sterling, Hong Kong dollars, Singapore dollars and Australian dollars on translation to the group's presentational currency, although these exposures are minimal.
The following table summarises the carrying value of total assets and total liabilities categorised by currency:
| 31 December 2011 | UK £ \$m |
CAD \$ \$m |
EUR € \$m |
Subtotal \$m |
US \$ \$m |
Total \$m |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total assets | 910.0 | 131.4 | 237.2 | 1,278.6 | 4,840.1 | 6,118.7 |
| Total liabilities | (803.7) | (105.7) | (288.0) | (1,197.4) | (3,850.3) | (5,047.7) |
| Net assets | 106.3 | 25.7 | (50.8) | 81.2 | 989.8 | 1,071.0 |
| 31 December 2010 | UK £ \$m |
CAD \$ \$m |
EUR € \$m |
Subtotal \$m |
US \$ \$m |
Total \$m |
| Total assets | 976.4 | 168.8 | 293.1 | 1,438.3 | 4,336.0 | 5,774.3 |
| Total liabilities | (1,000.4) | (109.4) | (258.6) | (1,368.4) | (3,323.0) | (4,691.4) |
| Net assets | (24.0) | 59.4 | 34.5 | 69.9 | 1,013.0 | 1,082.9 |
Fluctuations in the group's trading currencies against the US dollar would result in a change to profit after tax and net asset value. The table below gives an indication of the impact on profit after tax and net assets of a percentage change in relative strength of US dollar against the value of sterling, canadian dollar and euro, simultaneously. The analysis is based on the current information available and our assumptions in performing this analysis for 2010 include an estimate of the impact on our cross currency swaps.
| Impact on profit after tax for the year ended |
Impact on net assets | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Change in exchange rate of UK sterling, Canadian dollar and euro relative to US dollar | 2011 \$m |
2010 \$m |
2011 \$m |
2010 \$m |
| Dollar weakens 30% against other currencies | 11.6 | 21.0 | 11.6 | 21.0 |
| Dollar weakens 20% against other currencies | 7.8 | 14.0 | 7.8 | 14.0 |
| Dollar weakens 10% against other currencies | 3.9 | 7.0 | 3.9 | 7.0 |
| Dollar strengthens 10% against other currencies | (3.9) | (7.0) | (3.9) | (7.0) |
| Dollar strengthens 20% against other currencies | (7.8) | (14.0) | (7.8) | (14.0) |
| Dollar strengthens 30% against other currencies | (11.6) | (21.0) | (11.6) | (21.0) |
Some of the group's financial instruments, including financial assets, cash and cash equivalents and borrowings, are exposed to movements in market interest rates.
The group manages interest rate risk by primarily investing in short-duration financial assets and cash and cash equivalents. The investment committee monitors the duration of these assets on a regular basis.
The group also entered into interest rate futures contracts to manage the interest rate risk on bond portfolios.
The following table shows the average duration at the reporting date of the financial instruments. Duration is a commonly used measure of volatility and we believe gives a better indication than maturity of the likely sensitivity of our portfolio to changes in interest rates.
| Duration | <1 yr | 1-2 yrs | 2-3 yrs | 3-4 yrs | 4-5 yrs | 5-10 yrs | >10 yrs | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 December 2011 | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m |
| Fixed and floating rate securities | 1,817.2 | 392.7 | 269.7 | 209.9 | 187.5 | 64.1 | – | 2,941.1 |
| Cash and cash equivalents | 650.1 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 650.1 |
| Derivative financial instruments | 2.7 | – | 0.1 | (0.1) | – | (0.1) | – | 2.6 |
| Borrowings | – | – | – | – | (246.8) | – | (18.0) | (264.8) |
| Total | 2,470.0 | 392.7 | 269.8 | 209.8 | (59.3) | 64.0 | (18.0) | 3,329.0 |
| 31 December 2010 | <1 yr \$m |
1-2 yrs \$m |
2-3 yrs \$m |
3-4 yrs \$m |
4-5 yrs \$m |
5-10 yrs \$m |
>10 yrs \$m |
Total \$m |
| Fixed and floating rate securities | 1,903.0 | 207.1 | 185.0 | 225.7 | 86.9 | 56.5 | – | 2,664.2 |
| Cash and cash equivalents | 745.0 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 745.0 |
| Borrowings | – | – | – | – | – | (250.2) | (18.0) | (268.2) |
| Total | 2,648.0 | 207.1 | 185.0 | 225.7 | 86.9 | (193.7) | (18.0) | 3,141.0 |
Borrowings include tier 2 subordinated debt that are due in October 2026 with a first call at the group's option on October 2016. If the debt is settled when due in October 2026 the duration of the debt falls within the >10 yrs category. If the debt is called in October 2016, the duration of the debt falls within the 4-5 yrs category. Also included in borrowings is \$18m of a subordinated debt facility raised in 2004 which is unsecured. The subordinated notes are due in 2034 and have been callable at the group's option since 2009.
The group holds financial assets and liabilities that are exposed to interest rate risk. Changes in interest yields, with all other variables constant, would result in changes in the capital value of debt securities and a change in the value of borrowings and derivative financial instruments. This would affect reported profits and net assets as indicated in the below table:
| Impact on profit after income tax for the year |
Impact on net assets | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 \$m |
2010 \$m |
2011 \$m |
2010 \$m |
||
| Shift in yield (basis points) | |||||
| 150 basis point increase | (44.6) | (23.7) | (44.6) | (23.7) | |
| 100 basis point increase | (29.7) | (15.7) | (29.7) | (15.7) | |
| 50 basis point increase | (15.0) | (8.0) | (15.0) | (8.0) | |
| 50 basis point decrease | 15.0 | 8.0 | 15.0 | 8.0 | |
| 100 basis point decrease | 27.0 | 15.7 | 27.0 | 15.7 |
Financial assets and derivatives that are recognised in the statement of financial position at their fair value are susceptible to losses due to adverse changes in prices. This is referred to as price risk.
Financial assets include fixed and floating securities and hedge funds depending on the group's appetite for risk. The fixed income securities are well diversified across high quality, liquid securities. The price risk associated with these securities is predominantly interest, foreign exchange and credit risk related. The sensitivity to price risk that relates to the group's hedge fund investments is presented below. The investment committee has established comprehensive guidelines with investment managers setting out maximum investment limits, diversification across industries and concentrations in any one industry or company.
Listed investments are recognised in the statement of financial position at quoted bid price. If the market for the investment is not considered to be active, then the group establishes fair value using valuation techniques. This includes using recent arm's length market transactions, reference to current fair value of other investments that are substantially the same, discounted cash flow models and other valuation techniques that are commonly used by market participants.
| Impact on profit after income tax for the year |
Impact on net assets | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 \$m |
2010 \$m |
2011 \$m |
2010 \$m |
||
| Change in fair value of hedge fund portfolios | |||||
| 30% increase in fair value | 101.1 | 106.1 | 101.1 | 106.1 | |
| 20% increase in fair value | 67.4 | 70.7 | 67.4 | 70.7 | |
| 10% increase in fair value | 33.7 | 35.4 | 33.7 | 35.4 | |
| 10% decrease in fair value | (33.7) | (35.4) | (33.7) | (35.4) | |
| 20% decrease in fair value | (67.4) | (70.7) | (67.4) | (70.7) | |
| 30% decrease in fair value | (101.1) | (106.1) | (101.1) | (106.1) |
Credit risk arises where counterparties fail to meet their financial obligations in full as they fall due. The primary sources of credit risk for the group are:
The group's core business is to accept significant insurance risk and the appetite for other risks is low. This protects the group's capital from erosion so that it can meet its insurance liabilities.
An approval system also exists for all new brokers, and broker performance is carefully monitored. Regular exception reports highlight trading with non-approved brokers, and the group's credit control function frequently assesses the ageing and collectability of debtor balances. Any large, aged items are prioritised and where collection is outsourced, incentives are in place to support these priorities.
The investments committee has established comprehensive guidelines for the group's investment managers regarding the type, duration and quality of investments acceptable to the group. The performance of investment managers is regularly reviewed to confirm adherence to these guidelines.
The group has developed processes to formally examine all reinsurers before entering into new business arrangements. New reinsurers are approved by the reinsurance security committee (RSC), which also reviews arrangements with all existing reinsurers at least annually. Vulnerable or slow-paying reinsurers are examined more frequently.
To assist in the understanding of credit risks, A.M. Best, Moody's and Standard & Poor's (S&P) ratings are used. These ratings have been categorised below as used for Lloyd's reporting:
| A. M. Best | Moody's | S&P | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | A++ to A- | Aaa to A3 | AAA to A |
| Tier 2 | B++ to B- | Baa1 to Ba3 | BBB+ to BB |
| Tier 3 | C++ to C- | B1 to Caa | B+ to CCC |
| Tier 4 | D, E, F, S | Ca to C | R, (U,S) 3 |
The following tables summarise the group's concentrations of credit risk:
| Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3 | Tier 4 | Unrated | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 December 2011 | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m |
| Financial assets | ||||||
| – financial investments | 2,855.9 | 85.2 | – | – | 411.0 | 3,352.1 |
| – derivative financial instruments | – | – | – | – | 4.7 | 4.7 |
| Insurance receivables | – | – | – | – | 558.7 | 558.7 |
| Reinsurance assets | 1,197.9 | – | – | – | – | 1,197.9 |
| Other receivables | 21.9 | – | – | – | – | 21.9 |
| Cash and cash equivalents | 650.1 | – | – | – | – | 650.1 |
| Total | 4,725.8 | 85.2 | – | – | 974.4 | 5,785.4 |
The following tables summarise the group's concentrations of credit risk:
| 31 December 2010 | Tier 1 \$m |
Tier 2 \$m |
Tier 3 \$m |
Tier 4 \$m |
Unrated \$m |
Total \$m |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Financial assets | ||||||
| – financial investments | 2,649.2 | 15.0 | – | – | 433.1 | 3,097.3 |
| – derivative financial instruments | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Insurance receivables | – | – | – | – | 527.1 | 527.1 |
| Reinsurance assets | 1,034.9 | – | – | – | – | 1,034.9 |
| Other receivables | 33.9 | – | – | – | – | 33.9 |
| Cash and cash equivalents | 745.0 | – | – | – | – | 745.0 |
| Total | 4,463.0 | 15.0 | – | – | 960.2 | 5,438.2 |
Insurance receivables and other receivables balances held by the group have not been impaired, based on all evidence available, and no impairment provision has been recognised in respect of these assets. An analysis of the overall credit risk exposure indicates that the group has reinsurance assets that are impaired at the reporting date. The total impairment provision made in respect of these assets at 31 December 2011 totals \$15.7m (2010: \$17.3m).
Insurance receivables in respect of coverholder business are credit controlled by third-party managers. We monitor third party coverholders' performance and their financial processes through the group's coverholder management team. These assets have been individually impaired after considering information such as the occurrence of significant changes in the counterparties' financial position, pattern of historical payment information and disputes with counterparties.
Financial investments falling within the unrated category comprise hedge funds for which there is no readily available market data to allow classification within the respective tiers. Additionally, insurance receivables are classified as unrated in accordance with Lloyd's guidelines.
The group has insurance receivables and reinsurance assets that are past due but not impaired at the reporting date. An aged analysis of these is presented below:
| Greater than | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 30 days past due |
30-60 days past due |
60-90 days past due |
90 days past due |
Total | |
| 31 December 2011 | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m |
| Insurance receivables | 12.6 | 3.6 | 1.6 | 3.6 | 21.4 |
| Reinsurance assets | 2.9 | 1.5 | 0.5 | 9.8 | 14.7 |
| Up to 30 days | 30-60 days | 60-90 days | Greater than 90 days |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| past due | past due | past due | past due | Total | |
| 31 December 2010 | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m |
| Insurance receivables | 10.9 | 1.9 | 1.9 | 2.8 | 17.5 |
| Reinsurance assets | 2.2 | 3.7 | 2.9 | 11.1 | 19.9 |
Liquidity risk arises where cash may not be available to pay obligations when due at a reasonable cost. The group is exposed to daily calls on its available cash resources, principally from claims arising from its insurance business. In the majority of the cases, these claims are settled from the premiums received.
The group's approach is to manage its liquidity position so that it can reasonably survive a significant individual or market loss event (details of the group's exposure to realistic disaster scenarios (RDS) are provided on page 95). This means that the group maintains sufficient liquid assets, or assets that can be translated into liquid assets at short notice and without any significant capital loss, to meet expected cash flow requirements. These liquid funds are regularly monitored using cash flow forecasting to ensure that surplus funds are invested to achieve a higher rate of return. The group also makes use of loan facilities and borrowings, details of which can be found in note 25. Further information on the group's capital resources is contained on pages 38 and 39. The sources and uses of funds table on page 38 shows the level of surplus capital that the group currently holds. This is the surplus over expected working capital and regulatory capital requirements and represents a buffer that could be used to meet unforeseen costs or take advantage of new opportunities.
The following is an analysis by business segment of the estimated timing of the net cash flows based on the net claims liabilities* balance held at 31 December:
| Weighted | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Within | Greater than | average term to settlement |
||||
| 31 December 2011 | 1 year | 2-3 years | 4-5 years | 5 years | Total | (years) |
| Life, accident and health | 20.8 | 10.0 | 1.6 | 0.4 | 32.8 | 1.1 |
| Marine | 91.8 | 86.7 | 26.1 | 2.1 | 206.7 | 1.5 |
| Political risks and contingency | 42.1 | 51.1 | 18.1 | 2.4 | 113.7 | 1.8 |
| Property | 144.3 | 100.0 | 19.7 | 8.1 | 272.1 | 1.4 |
| Reinsurance | 119.6 | 104.1 | 29.4 | 3.5 | 256.6 | 1.5 |
| Specialty lines | 394.3 | 681.5 | 403.7 | 169.1 | 1,648.6 | 2.5 |
| Net insurance liabilities | 812.9 | 1,033.4 | 498.6 | 185.6 | 2,530.5 |
* For a breakdown of net claims liabilities refer to note 24.
| Net insurance liabilities | 735.4 | 984.5 | 494.5 | 184.4 | 2,398.8 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Specialty lines | 376.7 | 676.7 | 406.0 | 170.4 | 1,629.8 | 2.5 |
| Reinsurance | 88.2 | 80.1 | 23.3 | 3.0 | 194.6 | 1.5 |
| Property | 125.6 | 87.0 | 16.8 | 6.8 | 236.2 | 1.4 |
| Political risks and contingency | 34.9 | 44.2 | 20.1 | 1.8 | 101.0 | 1.9 |
| Marine | 91.6 | 87.9 | 26.9 | 2.1 | 208.5 | 1.6 |
| Life, accident and health | 18.4 | 8.6 | 1.4 | 0.3 | 28.7 | 1.1 |
| 31 December 2010 | 1 year | 2-3 years | 4-5 years | 5 years | Total | (years) |
| Within | Greater than | average term to settlement |
||||
| Weighted |
The following table is an analysis of the net contractual cash flows based on all the liabilities held at 31 December:
| Within | Greater than | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 December 2011 | 1 year | 2-3 years | 4-5 years | 5 years | Total |
| Net insurance liabilities | 812.9 | 1,033.4 | 498.6 | 185.6 | 2,530.5 |
| Borrowings | – | – | 246.8 | 18.0 | 264.8 |
| Other payables | 366.0 | – | – | – | 366.0 |
| Deferred tax liability | – | 80.2 | – | – | 80.2 |
| Within | Greater than |
||||
| 31 December 2010 | 1 year | 2-3 years | 4-5 years | 5 years | Total |
| Net insurance liabilities | 735.4 | 984.5 | 494.5 | 184.4 | 2,398.8 |
| Borrowings | – | – | – | 268.2 | 268.2 |
| Other payables | 285.4 | – | – | – | 285.4 |
| Deferred tax liability | – | 91.0 | – | – | 91.0 |
The next two tables summarise the carrying amount at reporting date of financial instruments analysed by maturity date.
| Maturity 31 December 2011 |
<1 yr \$m |
1-2 yrs \$m |
2-3 yrs \$m |
3-4 yrs \$m |
4-5 yrs \$m |
5-10 yrs \$m |
>10 yrs \$m |
Total \$m |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed and floating rate securities | 1,470.3 | 443.9 | 373.3 | 248.0 | 206.8 | 198.8 | – | 2,941.1 |
| Derivative financial instruments | 2.7 | – | 0.1 | (0.1) | – | (0.1) | – | 2.6 |
| Cash and cash equivalents | 650.1 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 650.1 |
| Other receivables | 21.9 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 21.9 |
| Other payables | (366.0) | – | – | – | – | – | – | (366.0) |
| Borrowings | – | – | – | – | (246.8) | – | (18.0) | (264.8) |
| Total | 1,779.0 | 443.9 | 373.4 | 247.9 | (40.0) | 198.7 | (18.0) | 2,984.9 |
| Total | 2,046.6 | 470.9 | 206.7 | 220.6 | 140.4 | (192.0) | (3.7) | 2,889.5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Borrowings | – | – | – | – | – | (250.2) | (18.0) | (268.2) |
| Other payables | (285.4) | – | – | – | – | – | – | (285.4) |
| Other receivables | 33.9 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 33.9 |
| Cash and cash equivalents | 745.0 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 745.0 |
| Fixed and floating rate securities | 1,553.1 | 470.9 | 206.7 | 220.6 | 140.4 | 58.2 | 14.3 | 2,664.2 |
| 31 December 2010 | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m |
| <1 yr | 1-2 yrs | 2-3 yrs | 3-4 yrs | 4-5 yrs | 5-10 yrs | >10 yrs | Total |
Borrowings include tier 2 subordinated debt that are due in October 2026 with a first call at the group's option on October 2016. If the debt is settled when due in October 2026 the maturity date of the debt falls within the >10 yrs category. If the debt is called in October 2016, the maturity date of the debt falls within the 4-5 yrs category.
The group makes additional interest payments for borrowings. Further details are provided in notes 8 and 25..
Operational risk arises from the risk of losses due to inadequate or failed internal processes, people, systems, service providers or from external events.
There are a number of business activities for which the group uses the services of a third-party company, such as investment management, data entry and credit control. These service providers are selected against rigorous criteria and formal service level agreements are in place, and regularly monitored and reviewed.
The group also recognises that it is necessary for people, systems and infrastructure to be available to support our operations. Therefore we have taken significant steps to mitigate the impact of business interruption which could follow a variety of events, including the loss of key individuals and facilities. We operate a formal disaster recovery plan which, in the event of an incident, allows the group to move critical operations to an alternative location within 24 hours.
The group actively manages operational risks and minimises them where appropriate. This is achieved by implementing and communicating guidelines to staff and other third parties. The group also regularly monitors the performance of its controls and adherence to these guidelines through the risk management reporting process.
Key components of the group's operational control environment include:
The group follows a risk-based approach to determine the amount of capital required to support its activities. Recognised stochastic modelling techniques are used to measure risk exposures, and capital to support business activities is allocated according to risk profile. Stress and scenario analysis is regularly performed and the results are documented and reconciled to the board's risk appetite where necessary.
The group has several requirements for capital, including:
The capital structure section of the financial review on pages 38 to 39 provide further background to the group's management of capital.
Group risk occurs where business units fail to consider the impact of their activities on other parts of the group, as well as the risks arising from these activities. There are two main components of group risk which are explained below.
Contagion risk is the risk arising from the actions of one part of the group which adversely affect any other part of the group. As the two largest components of the group, this is of particular relevance for actions in any of the US operations adversely affecting the UK operations and vice versa. The group has limited appetite for contagion risk and minimises the impact of this occurring by operating with clear lines of communication across the group to ensure all group entities are well informed and working to common goals.
Reputation risk is the risk of negative publicity as a result of the group's contractual arrangements, customers, products, services and other activities. Key sources of reputation risk include operation of a Lloyd's franchise, interaction with capital markets since the group's IPO during 2002, and reliance upon the Beazley brand in the US, Europe, Asia and Australasia. The group's preference is to minimise reputation risks but where it is not possible or beneficial to avoid them, we seek to minimise their frequency and severity by management through public relations and communication channels.
Regulatory and legal risk is the risk arising from not complying with regulatory and legal requirements. The operations of the group are subject to legal and regulatory requirements within the jurisdictions in which it operates and the group's compliance function is responsible for ensuring that these requirements are adhered to.
This is the risk that the group's strategy is inappropriate or that the group is unable to implement its strategy. There is limited appetite for any breach of guidance issued by the board, and where events supersede the group's strategic plan this is escalated at the earliest opportunity through the group's monitoring tools and governance structure.
Management stretch is the risk that business growth might result in an insufficient or overly complicated management team structure, thereby undermining accountability and control within the group. As the group expands its worldwide business in the UK, US, Europe and Asia, management stretch may make the identification, analysis and control of group risks more complex.
On a day-to-day basis, the group's management structure encourages organisational flexibility and adaptability, while ensuring that activities are appropriately co-ordinated and controlled. By focusing on the needs of their customers and demonstrating both progressive and responsive abilities, staff, management and outsourced service providers are expected to excel in service and quality. Individuals and teams are also expected to transact their activities in an open and transparent way. These behavioural expectations reaffirm low group risk tolerance by aligning interests to ensure that routine activities, projects and other initiatives are implemented to benefit and protect resources of both local business segments and the group as a whole.
Segment information is presented in respect of reportable segments. These are based on the group's management and internal reporting structures and represent the level at which financial information is reported to the Board, being the chief operating decision-maker as defined in IFRS 8.
Previously we reported the IFRS non-monetary items adjustment in respect of unearned premium and deferred acquisition costs in the unallocated column of the segmental analysis as we believed this adjustment was subject to significant volatility and could distort our reported segmental results. This volatility was driven by the majority of our business being US dollar denominated when our functional currency was sterling. Since we changed the functional currency of the group's principal operating entities to the US dollar on 1 April 2010 the volatility and materiality of this adjustment has significantly reduced and as such we now allocate the IFRS non-monetary items adjustment between our business segments. The 2010 segmental analyses have been restated on this basis. The remaining item disclosed in the unallocated column is in respect of a \$33.7m non-recurring foreign exchange gain the details of which are disclosed in our 31 December 2010 report and accounts. Accordingly, all subsequent segmental analyses will not contain an unallocated column.
The operating segments are based upon the different types of insurance risk underwritten by the group as described below:
This segment underwrites life, personal accident and sports risks.
This segment underwrites a broad spectrum of marine classes including hull, energy, cargo and specie and war risks.
This segment underwrites terrorism, political violence, expropriation and credit risks as well as contingency and risks associated with contract frustration.
The property segment underwrites commercial, high-value homeowners' and engineering property insurance on a worldwide basis.
This division specialises in writing property catastrophe, property per risk, aggregate excess of loss and pro-rata business.
This segment mainly underwrites professional lines, employment practices liability, specialty liability, directors' and officers' liability and healthcare.
Segment results, assets and liabilities include items directly attributable to a segment as well as those that can be allocated on a reasonable basis. The reporting segments do not cross-sell business between each other. There are no individual policyholders who comprise greater than 10% of the group's total gross premiums written.
| Life, | Political | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| accident & health |
Marine | risks & contingency |
Property | Reinsurance | Specialty lines |
Total | |
| 2011 | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m |
| Segment results | |||||||
| Gross premiums written | 86.9 | 274.2 | 102.5 | 359.4 | 178.3 | 711.2 | 1,712.5 |
| Net premiums written | 80.3 | 245.1 | 85.2 | 273.9 | 130.4 | 559.1 | 1,374.0 |
| Net earned premiums | 74.0 | 231.7 | 84.3 | 283.7 | 131.7 | 579.6 | 1,385.0 |
| Net investment income | 1.3 | 3.4 | 2.0 | 5.7 | 4.0 | 22.9 | 39.3 |
| Other income | 1.6 | 2.4 | 1.2 | 11.0 | 0.7 | 11.2 | 28.1 |
| Revenue | 76.9 | 237.5 | 87.5 | 300.4 | 136.4 | 613.7 | 1,452.4 |
| Net insurance claims | 35.6 | 82.6 | 35.4 | 179.0 | 171.7 | 346.2 | 850.5 |
| Expenses for the acquisition of insurance contracts | 21.2 | 66.5 | 22.6 | 104.4 | 25.6 | 150.4 | 390.7 |
| Administrative expenses | 13.4 | 18.4 | 8.6 | 25.6 | 10.0 | 50.6 | 126.6 |
| Foreign exchange loss | 0.2 | 0.7 | 0.2 | 0.9 | 0.4 | 1.7 | 4.1 |
| Expenses | 70.4 | 168.2 | 66.8 | 309.9 | 207.7 | 548.9 | 1,371.9 |
| Share of loss of associate | – | – | – | – | – | (1.0) | (1.0) |
| Segment result | 6.5 | 69.3 | 20.7 | (9.5) | (71.3) | 63.8 | 79.5 |
| Finance costs | (16.8) | ||||||
| Profit before income tax | 62.7 | ||||||
| Income tax credit | 3.1 | ||||||
| Profit for the year attributable to equity shareholders |
65.8 | ||||||
| Claims ratio | 48% | 36% | 42% | 63% | 130% | 60% | 62% |
| Expense ratio | 47% | 36% | 37% | 46% | 27% | 34% | 37% |
| Combined ratio | 95% | 72% | 79% | 109% | 157% | 94% | 99% |
| Segment assets and liabilities | |||||||
| Segment assets | 200.3 | 949.8 | 729.8 | 965.8 | 365.9 | 2,907.1 | 6,118.7 |
| Segment liabilities | (140.8) | (636.8) | (608.8) | (859.9) | (327.2) | (2,474.2) | (5,047.7) |
| Net assets | 59.5 | 313.0 | 121.0 | 105.9 | 38.7 | 432.9 | 1,071.0 |
| Additional information | |||||||
| Capital expenditure | 0.7 | 1.4 | 0.5 | 3.4 | 1.1 | 6.4 | 13.5 |
| Amortisation & depreciation | 0.8 | 0.9 | 0.8 | 2.5 | 0.5 | 9.4 | 14.9 |
| Net cash flow | (5.0) | (22.9) | (9.5) | (11.2) | (10.9) | (35.4) | (94.9) |
| Life, | Political | Total | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| accident & health |
Marine | risks & contingency |
Property | Reinsurance | Specialty lines |
reportable segments |
Unallocated | Total | |
| 2010 | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m |
| Segment results | |||||||||
| Gross premiums written | 78.1 | 261.7 | 100.9 | 382.5 | 174.4 | 744.0 | 1,741.6 | – | 1,741.6 |
| Net premiums written | 71.4 | 235.6 | 79.9 | 283.8 | 134.4 | 597.0 | 1,402.1 | – | 1,402.1 |
| Net earned premiums | 65.7 | 233.9 | 87.4 | 285.9 | 131.6 | 600.7 | 1,405.2 | – | 1,405.2 |
| Net investment income | 0.9 | 3.3 | 2.2 | 4.9 | 2.9 | 23.3 | 37.5 | – | 37.5 |
| Other income | 2.0 | 3.1 | 1.3 | 10.3 | 2.3 | 9.1 | 28.1 | – | 28.1 |
| Revenue | 68.6 | 240.3 | 90.9 | 301.1 | 136.8 | 633.1 | 1,470.8 | – | 1,470.8 |
| Net insurance claims | 35.1 | 89.6 | 25.1 | 140.6 | 82.9 | 364.9 | 738.2 | – | 738.2 |
| Expenses for the acquisition | |||||||||
| of insurance contracts | 19.7 | 58.9 | 23.7 | 106.1 | 24.7 | 148.3 | 381.4 | – | 381.4 |
| Administrative expenses | 9.3 | 17.2 | 7.8 | 31.4 | 10.6 | 42.9 | 119.2 | – | 119.2 |
| Non-recurring foreign | |||||||||
| exchange gain | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | (33.7) | (33.7) |
| Foreign exchange gain | – | – | (0.1) | (0.3) | (0.2) | (0.3) | (0.9) | – | (0.9) |
| Expenses | 64.1 | 165.7 | 56.5 | 277.8 | 118.0 | 555.8 | 1,237.9 | (33.7) | 1,204.2 |
| Share of loss of associate | – | – | – | – | – | (0.9) | (0.9) | – | (0.9) |
| Segment result | 4.5 | 74.6 | 34.4 | 23.3 | 18.8 | 76.4 | 232.0 | 33.7 | 265.7 |
| Finance costs | (14.9) | ||||||||
| Profit before income tax | 250.8 | ||||||||
| Income tax expense | (33.8) | ||||||||
| Profit for the year attributable to |
|||||||||
| equity shareholders | 217.0 | ||||||||
| Claims ratio | 53% | 38% | 29% | 49% | 63% | 61% | 52% | ||
| Expense ratio | 44% | 33% | 36% | 48% | 27% | 32% | 36% | ||
| Combined ratio | 97% | 71% | 65% | 97% | 90% | 93% | 88% | ||
| Segment assets and liabilities | |||||||||
| Segment assets | 180.6 | 860.2 | 692.7 | 921.7 | 323.1 | 2,768.5 | 5,746.8 | 27.5 | 5,774.3 |
| Segment liabilities | (124.8) | (605.6) | (587.3) | (796.9) | (201.8) | (2,375.0) | (4,691.4) | – | (4,691.4) |
| Net assets | 55.8 | 254.6 | 105.4 | 124.8 | 121.3 | 393.5 | 1,055.4 | 27.5 | 1,082.9 |
| Additional information | |||||||||
| Capital expenditure | 0.2 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 1.9 | 0.5 | 6.4 | 10.1 | – | 10.1 |
| Amortisation & depreciation | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 1.8 | 0.3 | 5.0 | 7.7 | – | 7.7 |
| Net cash flow | (3.8) | (15.0) | (6.0) | (8.5) | (8.8) | (26.3) | (68.4) | – | (68.4) |
The group's operating segments are also managed geographically by placement of risk. UK earned premium in the analysis below represents all risks placed at Lloyd's and US earned premium represents all risks placed at the group's US insurance company, Beazley Insurance Company Inc. An analysis of earned premium split geographically by placement of risk and by reportable segment is provided in note 2 on page 95.
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| Net earned premiums | \$m | \$m |
| UK (Lloyd's) | 1,356.1 | 1,369.4 |
| US (Non-Lloyd's) | 28.9 | 35.8 |
| 1,385.0 | 1,405.2 | |
| 2011 | 2010 | |
| \$m | \$m | |
| Segment assets | ||
| UK (Lloyd's) | 5,821.2 | 5,468.5 |
| US (Non-Lloyd's) | 297.5 | 305.8 |
| 6,118.7 | 5,774.3 | |
| Segment assets are allocated based on where the assets are located. | ||
| 2011 | 2010 | |
| \$m | \$m | |
| Capital expenditure | ||
| UK (Lloyd's) | 12.7 | 8.1 |
| US (Non-Lloyd's) | 0.8 | 2.0 |
| 13.5 | 10.1 | |
| 4 Net investment income | ||
| 2011 | 2010 | |
| \$m | \$m | |
| Interest and dividends on financial investments at fair value through income statement | 64.8 | 60.2 |
| Realised losses on financial investments at fair value through income statement | (22.0) | (19.3) |
| Net unrealised fair value gains on financial investments at fair value through the income statement | 10.0 | 6.2 |
| Investment income from financial investments | 52.8 | 47.1 |
| Fair value loss on derivative financial instruments | (3.7) | – |
| Investment income | 49.1 | 47.1 |
| Investment management expenses | (9.8) | (9.6) |
| 39.3 | 37.5 | |
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| \$m | \$m | |
| Commissions received | 19.2 | 15.4 |
| Profit commissions | 5.0 | 10.5 |
| Agency fees | 2.1 | 1.8 |
| Other income | 1.8 | 0.4 |
| 28.1 | 28.1 |
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| \$m | \$m | |
| Fees payable to the company's auditor for the audit of the group's annual accounts | 0.5 | 0.4 |
| Fees payable to the company's auditor and its associates for other services: | ||
| – Audit of the company's subsidiaries | 0.6 | 0.6 |
| – Tax services | – | 0.1 |
| – Actuarial services | 0.2 | 0.2 |
| – Other services | – | 0.3 |
| Operating leases | 7.5 | 9.4 |
| 132.4 | 127.4 | |
|---|---|---|
| Recharged to syndicate 623 | (16.1) | (14.4) |
| 148.5 | 141.8 | |
| Pension costs* | 6.1 | 6.1 |
| Share-based remuneration | 10.6 | 9.3 |
| Social security | 9.3 | 8.5 |
| Short-term incentive payments | 28.7 | 34.0 |
| Wages and salaries | 93.8 | 83.9 |
| \$m | \$m | |
| 2011 | 2010 |
*Pension costs refer to the contributions made under the defined contribution scheme. Further information on the defined benefit pension scheme can be found in note 27.
| 16.8 | 14.9 | |
|---|---|---|
| Other finance costs | 1.0 | 1.9 |
| Interest expense | 15.8 | 13.0 |
| \$m | \$m | |
| 2011 | 2010 |
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| \$m | \$m | |
| Current tax expense | ||
| Current year | 8.4 | 23.4 |
| Prior year adjustments | (0.5) | (44.9) |
| 7.9 | (21.5) | |
| Deferred tax expense | ||
| Origination and reversal of temporary differences | (1.3) | 11.5 |
| Prior year adjustments | (9.7) | 43.8 |
| (11.0) | 55.3 | |
| Income tax expense | (3.1) | 33.8 |
| Profit before tax | 62.7 | 250.8 |
| Tax calculated at Irish rate | 7.8 | 31.4 |
| Rates applied | 12.5% | 12.5% |
| Effects of: | ||
| – Tax rates in foreign jurisdictions | 0.7 | 7.8 |
| – Non-deductible expenses | (0.1) | 0.7 |
| – Tax relief on share based payments – current and future years | (0.3) | 0.7 |
| – Under/(over) provided in prior years | (2.8) | (1.2) |
| – Change in UK tax rates* | (7.5) | (3.4) |
| – Foreign exchange on tax | (0.9) | (2.2) |
| Tax charge for the period | (3.1) | 33.8 |
The weighted average applicable tax rate was 13.0% (2010: 12.5%).
*The emergency budget on 22 June 2010 announced that the UK corporation tax rate will reduce from 28% to 24% over a period of four years from 2011. It is now expected that the UK corporation tax rate will be reduced to 23% by the end of this four year period. The rate was reduced to 26% with effect from 1 April 2011 and has been further reduced to 25% with effect from 1 April 2012. Accordingly, this rate reduction to 25% has been reflected in the deferred tax liability which forms part of the statement of financial position.
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| Basic (cents) | 13.0c | 42.1c |
| Diluted (cents) | 12.4c | 40.2c |
| Basic (pence) | 8.1p | 27.4p |
| Diluted (pence) | 7.7p | 26.1p |
Basic earnings per share are calculated by dividing profit after tax of \$65.8m (2010: \$217.0m) by the weighted average number of shares in issue during the year of 505.4m (2010: 515.1m). The shares held in the Employee Share Options Plan (ESOP) of 12.6m (2010: 11.3m) have been excluded from the calculation, until such time as they vest unconditionally with the employees. The weighted average number of treasury shares of 17.4m (2010: 8.2m) have been excluded from the calculation.
Diluted earnings per share are calculated by dividing profit after tax of \$65.8m (2010: \$217.0m) by the adjusted weighted average number of shares of 530.4m (2010: 540.2m). The adjusted weighted average number of shares assumes conversion of dilutive potential ordinary shares, being shares from the SAYE, retention and deferred share schemes. The shares held in the ESOP of 12.6m (2010: 11.3m) have been excluded from the calculation, until such time as they vest unconditionally with the employees. The weighted average number of treasury shares of 17.4m (2010: 8.2m) have been excluded from the calculation.
A second interim dividend of 5.4p per ordinary share (2010: 7.6p, including a special dividend of 2.5p) will be payable on 30 March 2012 to shareholders registered at 5.00pm on 2 March 2012 in respect of the six months ended 31 December 2011. These financial statements do not provide for the second interim dividend as a liability.
Together with the interim dividend of 2.5p (2010: 2.4p) this gives a total dividend for the year of 7.9p (2010: 10.0p, including a special dividend of 2.5p).
The second interim dividend will be payable on 30 March 2012 to shareholders registered at 5.00pm on 2 March 2012 (save to the extent that shareholders on the register of members on 2 March 2012 are to be paid a dividend by a subsidiary of the company (being Beazley DAS Limited) resident for tax purposes in the United Kingdom pursuant to elections made or deemed to have been made and such shareholders shall have no right to this second interim dividend).
| Goodwill \$m |
Syndicate capacity \$m |
Licences \$m |
IT development costs \$m |
Renewal rights \$m |
Total \$m |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | ||||||
| Balance at 1 January 2010 | 77.1 | 9.7 | 9.3 | 29.3 | – | 125.4 |
| Other additions | – | 0.2 | – | 7.9 | – | 8.1 |
| Foreign exchange loss | – | (0.5) | – | (1.1) | – | (1.6) |
| Balance at 31 December 2010 | 77.1 | 9.4 | 9.3 | 36.1 | – | 131.9 |
| Balance at 1 January 2011 | 77.1 | 9.4 | 9.3 | 36.1 | – | 131.9 |
| Acquired through business combinations | 10.3 | – | – | – | 10.3 | 20.6 |
| Other additions | – | 1.4 | – | 11.1 | – | 12.5 |
| Disposals | (8.6) | – | – | – | – | (8.6) |
| Transfers | (6.7) | – | – | – | 6.7 | – |
| Foreign exchange gain/(loss) | 0.2 | – | – | (0.3) | – | (0.1) |
| Balance at 31 December 2011 | 72.3 | 10.8 | 9.3 | 46.9 | 17.0 | 156.3 |
| Amortisation | ||||||
| Balance at 1 January 2010 | – | – | – | (11.9) | – | (11.9) |
| Amortisation for the year | – | – | – | (3.5) | – | (3.5) |
| Foreign exchange gain | – | – | – | 0.5 | – | 0.5 |
| Balance at 31 December 2010 | – | – | – | (14.9) | – | (14.9) |
| Balance at 1 January 2011 | – | – | – | (14.9) | – | (14.9) |
| Amortisation for the year | – | – | – | (10.4) | (0.7) | (11.1) |
| Foreign exchange gain | – | – | – | 0.4 | – | 0.4 |
| Balance at 31 December 2011 | – | – | – | (24.9) | (0.7) | (25.6) |
| Carrying amount | ||||||
| 31 December 2011 | 72.3 | 10.8 | 9.3 | 22.0 | 16.3 | 130.7 |
| 31 December 2010 | 77.1 | 9.4 | 9.3 | 21.2 | – | 117.0 |
During 2011 we disposed of a business unit for \$8.6m. As part of this sale agreement we secured the renewal rights for this business for five years.
Goodwill, syndicate capacity and US insurance authorisation licences are deemed to have indefinite life as they are expected to have value in use that does not erode or become obsolete over the course of time. Consequently, they are not amortised but annually tested for impairment. They are allocated to the group's cash-generating units (CGUs) as follows:
| 2011 | Life, accident and health \$m |
Marine \$m |
Political risks and contingency \$m |
Property \$m |
Reinsurance \$m |
Specialty lines \$m |
Total \$m |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Goodwill | 39.5 | 2.3 | 1.0 | 24.3 | 0.8 | 4.4 | 72.3 |
| Capacity | 0.3 | 1.7 | 0.8 | 2.5 | 0.7 | 4.8 | 10.8 |
| Licences | – | – | – | 1.9 | – | 7.4 | 9.3 |
| Total | 39.8 | 4.0 | 1.8 | 28.7 | 1.5 | 16.6 | 92.4 |
When testing for impairment, the recoverable amount of a CGU is determined based on value in use. Value in use is calculated using projected cash flows based on financial budgets approved by management covering a five-year period taking into account historic growth rates and expected future market conditions. A discount rate of 9% (2010: 10%) has been used to discount the projected cash flows. The same discount rate has been applied to all operating segments as these segments all undertake underwriting activities supported by the same capital base. The discount rate of 9% (2010: 10%) is the group's weighted average cost of capital. It has been calculated using independent measures of the risk-free rate of return and the group's risk profile relative to the risk-free and market rates of return and as such is considered representative of the rate appropriate to the risk specific to the CGU.
The impairment tests have been performed assuming the group's operating segments are the cash-generating units to which the intangible assets have been allocated. The tests indicate that there is significant headroom in respect of the value in use of all the group's intangible assets and it is not expected that any realistic change in market conditions would give rise to an impairment.
| Company | Group | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fixtures & fittings |
Fixtures & fittings |
Computer equipment |
Total | |
| \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | |
| Cost | ||||
| Balance at 1 January 2010 | 0.5 | 18.4 | 7.7 | 26.1 |
| Additions | – | 1.5 | 0.5 | 2.0 |
| Disposals | – | (1.0) | (0.1) | (1.1) |
| Transfer of assets from group companies | 1.6 | – | – | – |
| Foreign exchange loss | – | (0.6) | (0.2) | (0.8) |
| Balance at 31 December 2010 | 2.1 | 18.3 | 7.9 | 26.2 |
| Balance at 1 January 2011 | 2.1 | 18.3 | 7.9 | 26.2 |
| Additions | – | 0.7 | 0.3 | 1.0 |
| Additions from business combinations | – | 0.5 | – | 0.5 |
| Disposals | – | – | (0.3) | (0.3) |
| Foreign exchange loss | – | – | – | – |
| Balance at 31 December 2011 | 2.1 | 19.5 | 7.9 | 27.4 |
| Accumulated depreciation | ||||
| Balance at 1 January 2010 | – | (8.5) | (5.2) | (13.7) |
| Depreciation charge for the year | (0.4) | (2.6) | (1.6) | (4.2) |
| Disposals | – | 0.7 | 0.1 | 0.8 |
| Foreign exchange gain | – | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.5 |
| Balance at 31 December 2010 | (0.4) | (10.2) | (6.4) | (16.6) |
| Balance at 1 January 2011 | (0.4) | (10.2) | (6.4) | (16.6) |
| Depreciation charge for the year | (0.3) | (2.6) | (1.2) | (3.8) |
| Additions from business combinations | – | (0.2) | – | (0.2) |
| Disposals | – | – | 0.3 | 0.3 |
| Foreign exchange gain | – | – | – | – |
| Balance at 31 December 2011 | (0.7) | (13.0) | (7.3) | (20.3) |
| Carrying amounts | ||||
| 31 December 2011 | 1.4 | 6.5 | 0.6 | 7.1 |
| 31 December 2010 | 1.7 | 8.1 | 1.5 | 9.6 |
| 14 Investment in associates | ||||
| 2011 | 2010 | |||
| As at 1 January | \$m 6.5 |
\$m 1.4 |
||
| Acquisition of associate | – | 6.0 | ||
| Additional investment in Capson Corp., Inc. | 3.4 | – | ||
| Share of loss after tax As at 31 December |
(1.0) 8.9 |
(0.9) 6.5 |
||
| The group's investment in associates consists of: | ||||
| Country of incorporation |
% interest held |
Carrying value \$m |
||
| 2011 | ||||
| Falcon Money Management Holdings Limited (and subsidiaries) | Malta | 25 | 1.4 | |
| Capson Corp., Inc. (and subsidiary) | USA | 31 | 7.5 |
8.9
The aggregate financial information for all associates (100%) is as follows:
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| \$m | \$m | |
| Assets | 22.4 | 16.3 |
| Liabilities | 5.9 | 5.7 |
| Equity | 16.5 | 10.6 |
| Revenue | 7.8 | 6.2 |
| Loss after tax | (3.4) | (3.4) |
All of the investments in associates are unlisted and are equity accounted using financial information as at 31 December 2011.
| Additions Amortisation charge |
386.4 (390.7) |
389.9 (381.4) |
|---|---|---|
| Balance at 1 January | 164.0 | 155.5 |
| \$m | \$m | |
| 2011 | 2010 |
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| \$m | \$m | |
| Financial assets at fair value | ||
| Hedge funds | 411.0 | 433.1 |
| Debt securities | ||
| – Fixed rate | 2,444.5 | 2,208.4 |
| – Floating rate | 496.6 | 455.8 |
| Total financial investments at fair value through income statement | 3,352.1 | 3,097.3 |
| Derivative financial instruments | 4.7 | – |
| Total financial assets at fair value | 3,356.8 | 3,097.3 |
| Current | 1,886.0 | 1,993.7 |
| Non-current | 1,470.8 | 1,103.6 |
| 3,356.8 | 3,097.3 | |
| Financial liabilities | ||
| Subordinated debt | 18.0 | 18.0 |
| Tier 2 subordinated debt | 246.8 | 250.2 |
| Derivative financial instruments | 2.1 | – |
| Total financial liabilities | 266.9 | 268.2 |
| Current | 4.4 | 2.4 |
| Non-current | 262.5 | 265.8 |
| 266.9 | 268.2 |
A breakdown of the group's investment portfolio is provided on page 35. A breakdown of derivative financial instruments is disclosed in note 17.
As noted on page 90 consideration is also given when valuing the hedge funds to any restriction applied to distributions, the existence of side pocket provisions and the timing of the latest valuations. The adjustment to the underlying net asset value of the funds as a result of these considerations was \$nil at 31 December 2011 (2010: \$nil).
The group has given a fixed and floating charge over certain of its investments and other assets to secure obligations to Lloyd's in respect of its corporate member subsidiary. Further details are provided in note 32.
The table below summarises financial assets carried at fair value using a valuation hierarchy that reflects the significance of the inputs used in making the measurements. The fair value hierarchy has the following levels:
Level 1 – Valuations based on quoted prices in active markets for identical instruments. An active market is a market in which transactions for the instrument occur with sufficient frequency and volume on an ongoing basis such that quoted prices reflect prices at which an orderly transaction would take place between market participants at the measurement date. Included within Level 1 are bonds and treasury bills of major G8 government and government agencies.
Level 2 – Valuations based on quoted prices in markets that are not active, or based on pricing models for which significant inputs can be corroborated by observable market data (eg interest rates, exchange rates). Included within Level 2 are non-G8 government bonds and treasury bills, corporate bonds, asset backed securities and mortgage-backed securities.
Level 3 – Valuations based on inputs that are unobservable or for which there is limited market activity on which to measure fair value.
The availability of financial data can vary for different financial assets and is affected by a wide variety of factors, including the type of financial instrument, whether it is new and not yet established in the marketplace, and other characteristics specific to each transaction. To the extent that valuation is based on models or inputs that are unobservable in the market, the determination of fair value requires more judgement. Accordingly the degree of judgement exercised by management in determining fair value is greatest for instruments classified in Level 3. The group uses prices and inputs that are current as of the measurement date for valuation of these instruments.
Included within Level 3 are investments in capital growth assets such as hedge funds.
The majority of the group's investments are valued based on quoted market information or other observable market data. Hedge funds that comprise 12.2% of financial assets and are recorded at fair value are based on estimates and recorded as Level 3 investments. Where estimates are used, these are based on a combination of independent third-party evidence and internally developed models, calibrated to market observable data where possible. While such valuations are sensitive to estimates, it is believed that changing one or more of the assumptions to reasonably possible alternative assumptions would not change the fair value significantly.
The table below analyses financial instruments measured at fair value at 31 December 2011 and 31 December 2010, based on the level in the fair value hierarchy at which the financial instrument is categorised:
| 2011 | Level 1 \$m |
Level 2 \$m |
Level 3 \$m |
Total \$m |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Financial assets | ||||
| Fixed rate securities | 1,334.2 | 1,110.3 | – | 2,444.5 |
| Floating rate securities | 35.5 | 461.1 | – | 496.6 |
| Hedge funds | – | – | 411.0 | 411.0 |
| Derivative financial instruments | 0.1 | 4.6 | – | 4.7 |
| Total financial assets at fair value | 1,369.8 | 1,576.0 | 411.0 | 3,356.8 |
| Financial liabilities | ||||
| Derivative financial instruments | 0.3 | 1.8 | – | 2.1 |
| 2010 | Level 1 \$m |
Level 2 \$m |
Level 3 \$m |
Total \$m |
| Financial assets | ||||
| Fixed rate securities | 1,208.7 | 999.7 | – | 2,208.4 |
| Floating rate securities | 54.0 | 401.8 | – | 455.8 |
| Hedge funds | – | – | 433.1 | 433.1 |
| Derivative financial instruments | – | – | – | – |
| Total financial assets at fair value | 1,262.7 | 1,401.5 | 433.1 | 3,097.3 |
| Financial liabilities | ||||
| Derivative financial instruments | – | – | – | – |
The table below shows the movement in Level 3 assets during 2011 and 2010:
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| \$m | \$m | |
| Level 3 balance at 1 January | 433.1 | 268.8 |
| Purchases | 84.6 | 213.8 |
| Settlements | (100.9) | (70.0) |
| Fair value (loss)/gain reflected in the income statement | (5.8) | 20.5 |
| Level 3 balance at 31 December | 411.0 | 433.1 |
There were no transfers from fair value hierarchies one and two to three and vice-versa during the year. Refer to price sensitivity note 2 for the impact of changes in value of these assets on reported profits and net assets.
The value of the investments in the Level 3 category are sensitive to changes in fair value of assets within the underlying hedge funds. This relationship is such that, for example, a 10% reduction in the fair value of hedge fund investments will result in a 10% fall in value of the Level 3 balance.
The above qualitative and quantitative disclosure along with the risk management discussions in note 2 enables more accurate evaluation of Beazley's exposure to risks arising from financial instruments.
In 2011 the group entered into both exchange-traded and over-the-counter derivative contracts. The group had the right and the intention to settle each contract on a net basis.
The assets and liabilities of these contracts at 31 December 2011 are detailed below:
| Gross contract | Fair value |
|---|---|
| 2011 amount |
of assets |
| Derivative financial instrument assets \$m |
\$m |
| Short-term interest rate future contracts 35.4 |
0.1 |
| Foreign exchange swaps 80.1 |
4.3 |
| Foreign exchange forward contracts 69.0 |
0.3 |
| 184.5 | 4.7 |
| 2011 Derivative financial instrument liabilities |
Gross contract amount \$m |
Fair value of liabilities \$m |
|---|---|---|
| Foreign exchange swaps | 16.3 | 1.2 |
| Bond future contracts | 24.4 | 0.3 |
| Foreign exchange forward contracts | 95.0 | 0.6 |
| 135.7 | 2.1 |
During the year the group entered into short-term interest rate futures trades to manage the investment portfolio duration. The trades were executed in order to economically hedge the interest rate duration exposure of certain fixed income securities or resulted from cash flows expected to be paid or received in the near future.
During the year the group entered into over-the-counter FX swaps agreements in order to hedge the foreign currency exposure resulting from investment portfolio holdings denominated in non-base currency.
During the year the group entered into over-the-counter FX forward agreements in order to hedge the foreign currency exposure resulting from investment portfolio holdings denominated in non-base currency.
During the year the group entered in bond futures trades to manage the investment portfolio duration. The vast majority of the trades were executed in order to partially hedge the duration of fixed income securities held at the same time. Occasionally, bond futures contracts were traded in order to gain interest rate duration exposure to certain areas of the yield curve.
In 2010 the group entered into a number of long and short exchange-traded interest rate futures contracts denominated in a range of currencies to manage the interest rate duration of the investment portfolio. The gross notional amount entered into was \$375.6m and the fair value was settled daily in cash by way of margin accounts.
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| \$m | \$m | |
| Insurance receivables | 558.7 | 527.1 |
| 558.7 | 527.1 |
These are receivable within one year and relate to business transacted with brokers and intermediaries. All insurance receivables are designated as loans and receivables and their carrying values approximate fair value at the reporting date.
| 1,197.9 | 1,034.9 | |
|---|---|---|
| Reinsurers' share of unearned premium reserve | 202.2 | 211.1 |
| 995.7 | 823.8 | |
| Impairment provision | (15.7) | (17.3) |
| Reinsurers' share of claims | 1,011.4 | 841.1 |
| \$m | \$m | |
| 2011 | 2010 |
Further analysis of the reinsurance assets is provided in note 24.
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| Group | \$m | \$m |
| Cash at bank and in hand | 212.4 | 272.1 |
| Short-term deposits and highly liquid investments | 206.8 | 278.4 |
| Overseas deposits | 230.9 | 194.5 |
| 650.1 | 745.0 | |
| 2011 | 2010 | |
| Company | \$m | \$m |
| Cash in bank and in hand | 2.5 | 4.0 |
| 2.5 | 4.0 |
Cash and cash equivalents at 31 December 2010 has been reduced from \$1,264.7m to \$745.0m due to the reclassification of \$519.7m of short-term investments into financial assets. While the reclassified investments are all highly liquid instruments and have a maturity date of three months or less from the 31 December 2010 reporting date, they were purchased at various dates during that financial year. This reclassification has been made so as to better reflect the requirements of IAS 7 and our accounting policy as described on page 92. The reclassification increases financial assets as at 31 December 2010 to \$3,097.3m. All notes relating to these captions in the statement of financial position at 31 December 2010 have been updated.
In the statement of cash flows, the 2010 comparatives have been revised to reduce the closing cash and cash equivalents balance and increase the purchase of investments by \$519.7m. This decreases the net cash used in investing activities from \$321.0m to (\$198.7m).
Cash and cash equivalents and financial assets as at 31 December 2009 were appropriately stated. The reclassification has no impact on the consolidated assets, net assets or profits as previously reported.
| 2010 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| shares (m) | \$m | shares (m) | \$m | |
| 700.0 | 55.8 | 700.0 | 55.8 | |
| 535.9 | 42.8 | 534.9 | 42.7 | |
| 534.9 | 42.7 | 533.8 | 42.6 | |
| 1.0 | 0.1 | 1.1 | 0.1 | |
| 535.9 | 42.8 | 534.9 | 42.7 | |
| No. of | 2011 | No. of |
| Employee share |
Employee | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Merger | Treasury | options | share trust | ||
| reserve | shares | reserve | reserve | Total | |
| Group | |||||
| Balance at 1 January 2010 | 1.7 | – | 4.9 | (32.5) | (25.9) |
| Share based payments | – | – | 9.1 | – | 9.1 |
| Acquisition of own shares held in trust | – | – | – | (6.5) | (6.5) |
| Purchase of treasury shares | – | (28.9) | – | – | (28.9) |
| Transfer of shares to employees | – | – | (8.0) | 8.0 | – |
| Balance at 31 December 2010 | 1.7 | (28.9) | 6.0 | (31.0) | (52.2) |
| Share based payments | – | – | 9.3 | – | 9.3 |
| Acquisition of own shares held in trust | – | – | – | (6.0) | (6.0) |
| Purchase of treasury shares | – | (1.2) | – | – | (1.2) |
| Transfer of shares to employees | – | – | (8.1) | 8.1 | – |
| Balance at 31 December 2011 | 1.7 | (30.1) | 7.2 | (28.9) | (50.1) |
| Employee | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Treasury | share | Employee | |||
| Merger | shares | options | share trust | ||
| reserve | reserve | reserve | reserve | Total | |
| Company | |||||
| Balance at 1 January 2010 | (35.4) | – | (1.8) | 2.1 | (35.1) |
| Share based payments | – | – | 9.1 | – | 9.1 |
| Acquisition of own shares held in trust | – | – | – | (6.5) | (6.5) |
| Purchase of treasury shares | – | (28.9) | – | – | (28.9) |
| Transfer of shares to employees | – | – | (8.0) | 8.0 | – |
| Balance at 31 December 2010 | (35.4) | (28.9) | (0.7) | 3.6 | (61.4) |
| Share based payments | – | – | 9.3 | – | 9.3 |
| Acquisition of own shares held in trust | – | – | – | (6.0) | (6.0) |
| Purchase of treasury shares | – | (1.2) | – | – | (1.2) |
| Transfer of shares to employees | – | – | (8.1) | 8.1 | – |
| Balance at 31 December 2011 | (35.4) | (30.1) | 0.5 | 5.7 | (59.3) |
23.1 Employee share trust
| 2011 | 2010 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number (m) | \$m | Number (m) | \$m | ||
| Costs debited to employee share trust reserve | |||||
| Balance at 1 January | 13.5 | 31.0 | 14.2 | 32.5 | |
| Additions | 3.2 | 6.0 | 3.6 | 6.5 | |
| Transfer of shares to employees | (4.2) | (8.1) | (4.3) | (8.0) | |
| Balance at 31 December | 12.5 | 28.9 | 13.5 | 31.0 |
The shares are owned by the employee share trust to satisfy awards under the group's deferred share plan and retention plan. These shares are purchased on the market and carried at cost.
On the third anniversary of an award the shares under the deferred share plan are transferred from the trust to the employees. Under the retention plan, on the third anniversary, and each year after that, 25.0% of the shares awarded are transferred to the employees.
The deferred share plan is recognised in the income statement on a straight-line basis over a period of three years, while the retention share plan is recognised in the income statement on a straight-line basis over a period of six years.
The group has a long-term incentive plan (LTIP), approved share option plan and SAYE that entitle employees to purchase shares in the group. In accordance with these plans, options are exercisable at the market price of the shares at the date of the grant.
The terms and conditions of the grants are as follows:
| No. of options | Contractual life | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Share option plan | Grant date | (m) | Vesting conditions | of options |
| LTIP | 14/02/2011 | 2.6 | Five years service + NAV + | 10 years |
| 18/02/2010 | 2.9 | minimum shareholding requirement | ||
| LTIP | 14/02/2011 | 2.6 | Three years service + NAV + | 10 years |
| 18/02/2010 | 2.9 | minimum shareholding requirement | ||
| LTIP | 21/03/2005 | 0.1 | Three years service + NAV + | 10 years |
| 21/03/2006 | 0.1 | TSR comparator | ||
| 16/02/2009 | 1.0 | |||
| 27/04/2009 | 0.1 | |||
| Approved share option plan | 29/03/2004 | 0.1 | Three years service + NAV | 10 years |
| SAYE (UK) | 01/07/2009 | 1.3 | Three years service | N/A |
| 12/04/2010 | 0.4 | |||
| 11/04/2011 | 0.4 | |||
| SAYE (US) | 15/05/2010 | 0.1 | Two years service | N/A |
| 11/04/2011 | 0.2 | |||
| Total share options outstanding | 14.8 |
In summary the vesting conditions are defined as:
| Two years service Three years service NAV |
An employee has to remain in employment until the second anniversary from the grant date. An employee has to remain in employment until the third anniversary from the grant date. The NAV growth, after adjusting for the effect of dividends, is greater than the risk-free rate of return plus a premium per year. |
|---|---|
| TSR comparator | The group's TSR growth is compared with that of members of the comparator group over a three-year period starting with the year in which the award is made. |
Further details of equity compensation plans can be found in the directors' remuneration report on pages 57 to 72. The number and weighted average exercise prices of share options are as follows:
| 2011 | 2010 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weighted | Weighted | |||
| average | average | |||
| exercise | No. of | exercise | No. of | |
| price (pence | options | price (pence | options | |
| Outstanding at 1 January | per share) 17.1 |
(m) 12.5 |
per share) 37.6 |
(m) 6.4 |
| Forfeited during the year | 10.4 | (3.2) | 32.3 | (0.8) |
| Exercised during the year | 28.6 | (1.0) | 33.3 | (1.1) |
| Granted during the year | 8.8 | 6.5 | 7.5 | 8.0 |
| Outstanding at 31 December | 14.0 | 14.8 | 17.1 | 12.5 |
| Exercisable at 31 December | – | 0.3 | – | 0.4 |
The share option programme allows group employees to acquire shares of the company. The fair value of options granted is recognised as an employee expense with a corresponding increase in the employee share options reserve. The fair value of the options granted is measured at grant date and spread over the period in which the employees become unconditionally entitled to the options. The fair value of the options granted is measured using the Black Scholes model, taking into account the terms and conditions upon which the options were granted. The amount recognised as an expense is adjusted to reflect the actual number of share options that vest, except where forfeiture is due to the share option achieving the vesting conditions.
The following is a summary of the assumptions used to calculate the fair value:
| 2010 |
|---|
| \$m |
| 9.1 |
| 102.5 |
| 12.4 |
| 5.4yrs |
| 25.0% |
| 4.0% |
| 4.1% |
| 2011 \$m 9.3 116.0 14.0 5.7yrs 25.0% 4.0% 4.0% |
The expected volatility is based on historic volatility over a period of at least two years.
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| \$m | \$m | |
| Gross | ||
| Claims reported and loss adjustment expenses | 1,085.6 | 818.5 |
| Claims incurred but not reported | 2,440.6 | 2,404.1 |
| Gross claims liabilities | 3,526.2 | 3,222.6 |
| Unearned premiums | 808.4 | 824.2 |
| Total insurance liabilities, gross | 4,334.6 | 4,046.8 |
| Recoverable from reinsurers | ||
| Claims reported and loss adjustment expenses | 252.4 | 202.4 |
| Claims incurred but not reported | 743.3 | 621.4 |
| Reinsurers share of claims liabilities | 995.7 | 823.8 |
| Unearned premiums | 202.2 | 211.1 |
| Total reinsurers' share of insurance liabilities | 1,197.9 | 1,034.9 |
| 2011 \$m |
2010 \$m |
|
|---|---|---|
| Net | ||
| Claims reported and loss adjustment expenses | 833.2 | 616.1 |
| Claims incurred but not reported | 1,697.3 | 1,782.7 |
| Net claims liabilities | 2,530.5 | 2,398.8 |
| Unearned premiums | 606.2 | 613.1 |
| Total insurance liabilities, net | 3,136.7 | 3,011.9 |
The gross claims reported, the loss adjustment liabilities and the liabilities for claims incurred but not reported are net of recoveries from salvage and subrogation.
a) Claims and loss adjustment expenses
| 2011 | 2010 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gross | Reinsurance | Net | Gross | Reinsurance | Net | ||
| \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | ||
| Claims reported and loss adjustment expenses | 818.5 | (202.4) | 616.1 | 888.7 | (255.3) | 633.4 | |
| Claims incurred but not reported | 2,404.1 | (621.4) | 1,782.7 | 2,258.3 | (640.9) | 1,617.4 | |
| Balance at 1 January | 3,222.6 | (823.8) | 2,398.8 | 3,147.0 | (896.2) | 2,250.8 | |
| Claims paid | (871.7) | 188.8 | (682.9) | (702.4) | 161.3 | (541.1) | |
| Increase in claims | |||||||
| – Arising from current year claims | 1,386.4 | (349.4) | 1,037.0 | 1,091.6 | (208.8) | 882.8 | |
| – Arising from prior year claims | (217.5) | 31.0 | (186.5) | (231.0) | 86.4 | (144.6) | |
| – Reinsurance to close | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| Net exchange differences | 6.4 | (42.3) | (35.9) | (82.6) | 33.5 | (49.1) | |
| Balance at 31 December | 3,526.2 | (995.7) | 2,530.5 | 3,222.6 | (823.8) | 2,398.8 | |
| Claims reported and loss adjustment expenses | 1,085.6 | (252.4) | 833.2 | 818.5 | (202.4) | 616.1 | |
| Claims incurred but not reported | 2,440.6 | (743.3) | 1,697.3 | 2,404.1 | (621.4) | 1,782.7 | |
| Balance at 31 December | 3,526.2 | (995.7) | 2,530.5 | 3,222.6 | (823.8) | 2,398.8 |
| 2011 | 2010 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gross \$m |
Reinsurance \$m |
Net \$m |
Gross \$m |
Reinsurance \$m |
Net \$m |
|||
| Balance at 1 January | 824.2 | (211.1) | 613.1 | (259.9) | 616.8 | |||
| Increase in the year | 1,712.5 | (338.5) | 1,374.0 | 1,741.6 | (339.5) | 1,402.1 | ||
| Release in the year | (1,728.3) | 347.4 | (1,380.9) | (1,794.1) | 388.3 | (1,405.8) | ||
| Balance at 31 December | 808.4 | (202.2) | 606.2 | 824.2 | (211.1) | 613.1 |
Beazley uses a quarterly dual track process to set its reserves:
A formal internal peer review process is then undertaken to determine the reserves held for accounting purposes which, in totality, are not lower than the actuarially established figure. The group also commissions an annual independent review to ensure that the reserves established are reasonable.
The group has a consistent reserving philosophy with initial reserves being set to include risk margins which may be released over time as uncertainty reduces.
Chain-ladder techniques are applied to premiums, paid claims and incurred claims (ie paid claims plus case estimates). The basic technique involves the analysis of historical claims development factors and the selection of estimated development factors based on historical patterns. The selected development factors are then applied to cumulative claims data for each underwriting year that is not yet fully developed to produce an estimated ultimate claims cost for each underwriting year.
Chain-ladder techniques are most appropriate for classes of business that have a relatively stable development pattern. Chain-ladder techniques are less suitable in cases in which the insurer does not have a developed claims history for a particular class of business or for underwriting years that are still at immature stages of development where there is a higher level of assumption volatility.
The Bornhuetter-Ferguson method uses a combination of a benchmark/market-based estimate and an estimate based on claims experience. The former is based on a measure of exposure such as premiums; the latter is based on the paid or incurred claims observed to date. The two estimates are combined using a formula that gives more weight to the experience-based estimate as time passes. This technique has been used in situations where developed claims experience was not available for the projection (ie recent underwriting years or new classes of business).
The expected loss ratio method uses a benchmark/market-based estimate applied to the expected premium and is used for classes with little or no relevant historical data.
The choice of selected results for each underwriting year of each class of business depends on an assessment of the technique that has been most appropriate to observed historical developments. In certain instances, this has meant that different techniques or combinations of techniques have been selected for individual underwriting years or groups of underwriting years within the same class of business. As such, there are many assumptions used to estimate general insurance liabilities.
We also review triangulations of the paid/outstanding claim ratios as a way of monitoring any changes in the strength of the outstanding claim estimates between underwriting years so that adjustments can be made to mitigate any subsequent over/(under) reserving. To date, this analysis indicates no systematic change to the outstanding claim strength across underwriting years.
Where significant large losses impact an underwriting year (eg the events of 11 September 2001, the hurricanes in 2004, 2005 and 2008, or the earthquakes in 2010 and 2011), the development is usually very different from the attritional losses. In these situations, the large loss total is extracted from the remainder of the data and analysed separately by the respective claims managers using exposure analysis of the policies in force in the areas affected.
Further assumptions are required to convert gross of reinsurance estimates of ultimate claims cost to a net of reinsurance level and to establish reserves for unallocated claims handling expenses and reinsurance bad debt.
The main assumption underlying these techniques is that the group's past claims development experience (with appropriate adjustments for known changes) can be used to project future claims development and hence ultimate claims costs. As such these methods extrapolate the development of premiums, paid and incurred losses, average costs per claim and claim numbers for each underwriting year based on the observed development of earlier years.
Throughout, judgement is used to assess the extent to which past trends may not apply in the future; for example, to reflect changes in external or market factors such as economic conditions, public attitudes to claiming, levels of claims inflation, premium rate changes, judicial decisions and legislation, as well as internal factors such as portfolio mix, policy conditions and claims handling procedures.
As already discussed, general insurance business requires many different assumptions. The diagram below illustrates the main categories of assumptions used for each underwriting year and class combinations.
Given the range of assumptions used, the group's profit or loss is relatively insensitive to changes to a particular assumption used for an underwriting year/class combination. However, the group's profit or loss is potentially more sensitive to a systematic change in assumptions that affect many classes, such as judicial changes or when catastrophes produce more claims than expected. The group uses a range of risk mitigation strategies to reduce the volatility including the purchase of reinsurance. In addition, the group holds capital to absorb volatility.
The estimation of IBNR reserves for future claim notifications is subject to a greater degree of uncertainty than the estimation of the outstanding claims already notified. This is particularly true for the specialty lines business, which will typically display greater variations between initial estimates and final outcomes as a result of the greater degree of difficulty in estimating these reserves. The estimation of IBNR reserves for other business written is generally subject to less variability as claims are generally reported and settled relatively quickly.
As such, our reserving assumptions contain a reasonable margin for prudence given the uncertainties inherent in the insurance business underwritten, particularly on the longer tailed specialty lines classes.
Since year end 2004, we have identified a range of possible outcomes for each class and underwriting year combination directly from our individual capital assessment (ICA) process. Comparing these with our pricing assumptions and reserving estimates gives our management team increased clarity into our perceived reserving strength and the relative uncertainties of the business written.
To illustrate the robustness of our reserves, the loss development tables below provide information about historical claims development by the six segments – life, accident and health, marine, political risks and contingency, property, reinsurance and specialty lines. The tables are by underwriting year which in our view provides the most transparent reserving basis. We have supplied tables for both ultimate gross claims and ultimate net claims.
The top part of the table illustrates how the group's estimate of the claims ratio for each underwriting year has changed at successive year-ends. The bottom half of the table reconciles the gross and net claims to the amount appearing in the statement of financial position.
While the information in the table provides a historical perspective on the adequacy of the claims liabilities established in previous years, users of these financial statements are cautioned against extrapolating past redundancies or deficiencies on current claims liabilities. The group believes that the estimate of total claims liabilities as at 31 December 2011 is adequate. However, due to inherent uncertainties in the reserving process, it cannot be assured that such balances will ultimately prove to be adequate.
| 2002 ae | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gross ultimate claims | % | % | % | % | % | % | % | % | % | % | |
| Life, accident and health | |||||||||||
| 12 months | 53.1 | 52.7 | 50.3 | ||||||||
| 24 months | 52.4 | 52.3 | |||||||||
| 36 months | 45.1 | ||||||||||
| 48 months | |||||||||||
| 60 months | |||||||||||
| 72 months | |||||||||||
| 84 months | |||||||||||
| 96 months | |||||||||||
| 108 months | |||||||||||
| Marine | |||||||||||
| 12 months | 59.2 | 62.1 | 82.7 | 57.1 | 58.0 | 69.1 | 55.9 | 50.6 | 55.0 | ||
| 24 months | 45.1 | 65.6 | 80.7 | 42.3 | 60.1 | 65.2 | 52.1 | 49.7 | |||
| 36 months | 39.0 | 62.5 | 71.0 | 32.7 | 50.6 | 59.1 | 45.4 | ||||
| 48 months | 36.2 | 61.9 | 69.1 | 29.0 | 48.1 | 62.9 | |||||
| 60 months | 35.8 | 60.8 | 66.9 | 28.7 | 49.5 | ||||||
| 72 months | 35.7 | 56.3 | 65.0 | 26.4 | |||||||
| 84 months | 34.9 | 55.9 | 64.2 | ||||||||
| 96 months | 35.4 | 55.7 | |||||||||
| 108 months | 34.8 | ||||||||||
| Political risks and | |||||||||||
| contingency | |||||||||||
| 12 months | 59.1 | 67.3 | 61.0 | 57.5 | 57.2 | 57.5 | 61.1 | 61.4 | 58.7 | ||
| 24 months | 36.3 | 55.7 | 38.2 | 36.2 | 38.9 | 68.5 | 38.6 | 40.2 | |||
| 36 months | 31.6 | 52.4 | 28.5 | 32.6 | 56.4 | 73.5 | 35.3 | ||||
| 48 months | 28.7 | 38.3 | 24.9 | 43.3 | 52.8 | 87.3 | |||||
| 60 months | 31.2 | 37.3 | 18.3 | 39.3 | 53.5 | ||||||
| 72 months | 25.2 | 35.2 | 17.9 | 39.0 | |||||||
| 84 months | 24.3 | 26.7 | 17.9 | ||||||||
| 96 months | 21.4 | 26.5 | |||||||||
| 108 months | 21.4 | ||||||||||
| Property | |||||||||||
| 12 months | 50.9 | 65.6 | 87.9 | 58.4 | 58.3 | 70.9 | 53.9 | 58.6 | 59.1 | ||
| 24 months | 37.4 | 65.3 | 84.6 | 44.1 | 56.4 | 65.8 | 42.7 | 61.7 | |||
| 36 months | 34.6 | 65.9 | 83.1 | 43.0 | 54.2 | 64.8 | 37.6 | ||||
| 48 months | 34.0 | 64.1 | 88.2 | 50.3 | 55.0 | 62.7 | |||||
| 60 months | 33.7 | 64.5 | 87.6 | 50.4 | 58.6 | ||||||
| 72 months | 33.7 | 63.2 | 85.9 | 50.2 | |||||||
| 84 months | 34.8 | 63.0 | 85.1 | ||||||||
| 96 months | 34.6 | 63.6 | |||||||||
| 108 months | 34.3 |
| Gross ultimate claims | 2002 ae % |
2003 % |
2004 % |
2005 % |
2006 % |
2007 % |
2008 % |
2009 % |
2010 % |
2011 % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reinsurance | ||||||||||
| 12 months | 58.7 | 88.2 | 198.4 | 52.4 | 59.6 | 60.0 | 60.8 | 68.1 | 77.3 | |
| 24 months | 34.2 | 82.7 | 190.4 | 25.3 | 26.0 | 52.0 | 48.5 | 148.9 | ||
| 36 months | 28.4 | 77.3 | 188.0 | 24.9 | 21.5 | 43.1 | 40.4 | |||
| 48 months | 28.6 | 74.9 | 181.5 | 23.3 | 19.8 | 39.8 | ||||
| 60 months | 25.6 | 72.9 | 177.6 | 21.4 | 18.9 | |||||
| 72 months | 25.6 | 71.9 | 175.0 | 21.1 | ||||||
| 84 months | 24.5 | 70.8 | 173.8 | |||||||
| 96 months | 23.7 | 69.8 | ||||||||
| 108 months | 23.7 | |||||||||
| Specialty lines | ||||||||||
| 12 months | 73.0 | 71.9 | 72.0 | 72.6 | 72.8 | 72.2 | 72.7 | 73.9 | 75.6 | |
| 24 months | 70.1 | 71.3 | 72.0 | 72.7 | 72.4 | 72.2 | 72.7 | 73.9 | ||
| 36 months | 68.9 | 67.6 | 69.8 | 72.6 | 72.5 | 71.9 | 71.8 | |||
| 48 months | 60.0 | 64.4 | 66.3 | 72.6 | 72.1 | 71.9 | ||||
| 60 months | 53.2 | 59.4 | 62.8 | 70.8 | 72.3 | |||||
| 72 months | 52.3 | 58.3 | 56.1 | 65.7 | ||||||
| 84 months | 50.5 | 56.5 | 52.3 | |||||||
| 96 months | 47.2 | 54.5 | ||||||||
| 108 months | 46.2 | |||||||||
| Total | ||||||||||
| 12 months | 63.0 | 69.1 | 90.9 | 62.9 | 63.6 | 68.7 | 62.6 | 64.7 | 67.0 | |
| 24 months | 52.6 | 69.3 | 88.3 | 53.0 | 59.2 | 67.7 | 57.4 | 72.7 | ||
| 36 months | 49.4 | 66.6 | 84.5 | 50.7 | 58.1 | 66.2 | 53.6 | |||
| 48 months | 44.8 | 63.6 | 82.9 | 52.3 | 58.4 | 67.5 | ||||
| 60 months | 41.5 | 61.1 | 80.1 | 51.8 | 59.5 | |||||
| 72 months | 40.9 | 59.3 | 76.3 | 49.1 | ||||||
| 84 months | 40.0 | 58.0 | 74.4 | |||||||
| 96 months | 38.4 | 57.1 | ||||||||
| 108 months | 37.8 | |||||||||
| Total ultimate losses | ||||||||||
| (\$m) | 1,832.5 | 448.2 | 765.5 | 1,115.1 | 815.1 1,073.9 1,272.4 1,129.6 1,491.3 1,230.5 11,174.1 | |||||
| Less paid claims (\$m) | (1,688.9) | (377.6) | (647.3) | (951.8) | (503.1) | (659.5) | (657.5) | (419.6) | (326.9) | (72.6)(6,304.8) |
| Less unearned portion of | ||||||||||
| ultimate losses (\$m) | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | (74.4) | (505.9) (580.3) |
| Gross claims liabilities | ||||||||||
| (100% level) (\$m) | 143.6 | 70.6 | 118.2 | 163.3 | 312.0 | 414.4 | 614.9 | 710.0 1,090.0 | 652.0 4,289.0 | |
| Less unaligned share (\$m) |
(28.2) | (13.4) | (22.5) | (31.0) | (59.3) | (78.7) | (116.8) | (117.7) | (187.7) | (107.5) (762.8) |
| Gross claims liabilities, | ||||||||||
| group share | 115.4 | 57.2 | 95.7 | 132.3 | 252.7 | 335.7 | 498.1 | 592.3 | 902.3 | 544.5 3,526.2 |
| 2002 ae | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net ultimate claims | % | % | % | % | % | % | % | % | % | % | |
| Life, accident and health | |||||||||||
| 12 months | 51.7 | 51.4 | 49.1 | ||||||||
| 24 months | 50.6 | 51.8 | |||||||||
| 36 months | 44.5 | ||||||||||
| 48 months | |||||||||||
| 60 months | |||||||||||
| 72 months | |||||||||||
| 84 months | |||||||||||
| 96 months | |||||||||||
| 108 months | |||||||||||
| Marine | |||||||||||
| 12 months | 55.4 | 57.8 | 55.5 | 54.0 | 55.2 | 61.3 | 54.4 | 52.3 | 55.9 | ||
| 24 months | 44.8 | 53.2 | 49.1 | 41.9 | 56.4 | 57.0 | 48.4 | 49.4 | |||
| 36 months | 40.2 | 48.6 | 42.9 | 32.8 | 49.4 | 50.7 | 39.6 | ||||
| 48 months | 39.1 | 47.8 | 39.7 | 31.3 | 46.6 | 47.7 | |||||
| 60 months | 39.0 | 46.6 | 39.2 | 30.9 | 47.4 | ||||||
| 72 months | 39.1 | 44.2 | 38.1 | 29.1 | |||||||
| 84 months | 38.0 | 43.8 | 36.7 | ||||||||
| 96 months | 37.5 | 43.1 | |||||||||
| 108 months | 37.3 | ||||||||||
| Political risks and | |||||||||||
| contingency | |||||||||||
| 12 months | 56.7 | 63.9 | 63.4 | 56.1 | 55.4 | 55.9 | 59.0 | 57.3 | 54.9 | ||
| 24 months | 37.4 | 58.4 | 46.7 | 40.4 | 39.6 | 76.3 | 35.1 | 37.7 | |||
| 36 months | 34.8 | 54.2 | 36.0 | 37.0 | 55.1 | 75.9 | 32.6 | ||||
| 48 months | 33.0 | 41.3 | 30.1 | 47.1 | 53.8 | 80.0 | |||||
| 60 months | 35.1 | 40.9 | 24.4 | 41.3 | 52.1 | ||||||
| 72 months | 27.4 | 36.2 | 23.3 | 39.8 | |||||||
| 84 months | 25.7 | 26.3 | 23.3 | ||||||||
| 96 months | 22.6 | 25.5 | |||||||||
| 108 months | 22.6 | ||||||||||
| Property | |||||||||||
| 12 months | 48.6 | 59.7 | 65.0 | 61.1 | 61.0 | 67.2 | 53.6 | 58.9 | 60.4 | ||
| 24 months | 41.4 | 60.8 | 62.0 | 48.7 | 59.4 | 67.2 | 48.4 | 65.9 | |||
| 36 months | 39.0 | 60.3 | 58.4 | 47.1 | 58.6 | 65.0 | 45.0 | ||||
| 48 months | 38.4 | 58.5 | 61.1 | 50.8 | 59.2 | 63.9 | |||||
| 60 months | 38.0 | 58.3 | 61.7 | 50.0 | 62.0 | ||||||
| 72 months | 38.0 | 57.4 | 59.9 | 50.0 | |||||||
| 84 months | 39.5 | 57.3 | 59.0 | ||||||||
| 96 months | 39.3 | 57.2 | |||||||||
| 108 months | 39.1 |
| 2002 ae | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net ultimate claims | % | % | % | % | % | % | % | % | % | % |
| Reinsurance | ||||||||||
| 12 months | 60.1 | 88.7 | 152.6 | 54.3 | 55.2 | 67.5 | 55.6 | 76.9 | 86.9 | |
| 24 months | 39.5 | 86.4 | 134.1 | 37.0 | 30.1 | 57.9 | 52.6 | 133.8 | ||
| 36 months | 33.9 | 83.1 | 128.5 | 34.8 | 25.0 | 48.5 | 46.7 | |||
| 48 months | 34.6 | 76.9 | 119.2 | 32.5 | 22.7 | 46.4 | ||||
| 60 months | 31.7 | 73.6 | 112.9 | 31.0 | 22.1 | |||||
| 72 months | 31.7 | 72.0 | 111.6 | 31.0 | ||||||
| 84 months | 30.3 | 71.4 | 106.2 | |||||||
| 96 months | 29.4 | 70.0 | ||||||||
| 108 months | 29.4 | |||||||||
| Specialty lines | ||||||||||
| 12 months | 68.6 | 68.7 | 69.2 | 68.6 | 69.7 | 70.1 | 69.8 | 71.2 | 72.7 | |
| 24 months | 67.2 | 68.5 | 69.2 | 68.5 | 68.8 | 70.1 | 69.7 | 71.2 | ||
| 36 months | 66.0 | 65.7 | 67.4 | 68.6 | 68.8 | 70.0 | 69.0 | |||
| 48 months | 57.7 | 62.1 | 63.8 | 68.5 | 67.3 | 70.0 | ||||
| 60 months | 52.7 | 56.9 | 58.8 | 63.7 | 67.3 | |||||
| 72 months | 50.8 | 53.5 | 53.7 | 56.6 | ||||||
| 84 months | 48.9 | 51.0 | 49.3 | |||||||
| 96 months | 45.2 | 48.7 | ||||||||
| 108 months | 45.0 | |||||||||
| Total | ||||||||||
| 12 months | 60.1 | 65.3 | 73.1 | 62.1 | 63.1 | 66.3 | 60.3 | 64.4 | 66.5 | |
| 24 months | 53.0 | 65.4 | 69.0 | 54.3 | 59.2 | 66.9 | 56.9 | 69.7 | ||
| 36 months | 50.5 | 62.7 | 65.1 | 51.6 | 58.6 | 64.3 | 53.3 | |||
| 48 months | 46.4 | 59.4 | 62.4 | 52.2 | 57.5 | 63.9 | ||||
| 60 months | 43.7 | 56.4 | 59.3 | 50.0 | 58.1 | |||||
| 72 months | 42.6 | 53.9 | 56.4 | 46.5 | ||||||
| 84 months | 41.8 | 52.1 | 53.4 | |||||||
| 96 months | 39.8 | 50.8 | ||||||||
| 108 months | 39.6 | |||||||||
| Total ultimate losses | ||||||||||
| (\$m) | 993.8 | 377.9 | 573.3 | 626.7 | 631.2 | 910.2 | 976.5 | 852.9 | 1,167.8 | 1,057.7 8,168.0 |
| Less paid claims (\$m) | (922.0) | (329.2) | (476.0) | (502.3) | (423.1) | (574.4) | (571.2) | (374.1) | (301.6) | (69.3)(4,543.2) |
| Less unearned portion of | ||||||||||
| ultimate losses (\$m) | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | (75.2) | (474.4) (549.6) |
| Net claims liabilities | ||||||||||
| (100% level) (\$m) | 71.8 | 48.7 | 97.3 | 124.4 | 208.1 | 335.8 | 405.3 | 478.8 | 791.0 | 514.0 3,075.2 |
| Less unaligned share | ||||||||||
| (\$m) | (14.5) | (9.2) | (18.5) | (23.6) | (39.5) | (63.8) | (77.1) | (78.4) | (135.2) | (84.9) (544.7) |
| Net claims liabilities, | ||||||||||
| group share | 57.3 | 39.5 | 78.8 | 100.8 | 168.6 | 272.0 | 328.2 | 400.4 | 655.8 | 429.1 2,530.5 |
We have updated our loss development tables to show the ultimate loss ratios as at 31 December 2011 for each underwriting year.
Generally, the claims experience has been in line with expectation. We are cautiously reserved for natural catastrophes and the claims frequency on our specialty lines classes has been stable to reducing.
The 2009 underwriting year has continued to develop favourably and the claims development to date has been in line with or better than that experienced historically by the team.
With the exception of 2007 where there was a late developing shipbuilding claim, all other years have continued to exhibit a reducing net ultimate loss ratio trend. The gross development on the 2008 underwriting year arose on a liability account claim, which benefited heavily from inuring reinsurance.
This team continues to report profitable loss ratios on all underwriting years despite the impact of increased piracy, the 2005 and 2008 hurricanes and the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
In 2009 we reported that the ultimate claims on the 2006, 2007 and 2008 underwriting years had increased as a result of the deterioration in the claims environment of our political class, particularly from financial crisis exposed contracts. During 2011, those claim estimates have remained robust and we have continued to see improvement. This has been somewhat masked by setting claim reserves earlier this year in respect of exposure to the uprising in Libya.
The 2009 and 2010 underwriting years show a reversion to more benign claims experience. We continue to monitor claim frequency on a calendar month basis as an early indicator for future development.
Ultimate claims increased on the 2010 underwriting year as a result of the catastrophe events of 2011. The development on the 2007 underwriting year arose from our engineering class and relates to the construction of a power generation plant.
All other underwriting years showed downward movement in claim estimates.
The reserves for the 2005 hurricanes and the 2010 Chilean earthquake have been reduced during the year as more certainty has been gained. This has benefited the 2004, 2005, 2009 and 2010 underwriting years.
The 2010 and 2011 underwriting year ultimate loss ratios have been set higher to reflect the claims experience on the 2011 catastrophes.
The trend of consistent releases across underwriting years has continued, particularly on the 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 underwriting years. The incurred claims development remains favourable on these years.
During 2011 the team maintained its vigilance regarding the potential impact of the recession on claims experience in the 2007, 2008 and 2009 underwriting years. The conclusion remains that the ultimate loss ratios are robust.
Our 2010 and 2011 underwriting year loss ratios have opened slightly higher than in previous years. This reflects the rating and claims environment and allows consistency to be maintained in our reserving philosophy.
The table below analyses our net claims between current year claims and adjustments to prior year net claims reserves. These have been broken down by department and period.
The Tohoku earthquake in Japan, the Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand, the political unrest in Libya, the tornados in the US, and the floods in Australia and Thailand are all current year events. The claims arising in respect of these events have been classified as current year losses and the related claims have been disclosed as such in the table below.
Beazley's reserving policy is to maintain catastrophe margins either until the end of the exposure period or until catastrophe events occur. Therefore margins have been released on those classes affected by the 2011 catastrophe events which has resulted in a higher than average prior year reserve release.
The net of reinsurance estimates of ultimate claims costs on the 2010 and prior underwriting years has improved by \$186.5m during 2011 (2010: \$144.6m). This movement has arisen from a combination of better than expected claims experience coupled with small changes to the many assumptions reacting to the observed experience and anticipating any changes as a result of the new business written.
| Life, accident & health |
Marine | Political risks & contingency |
Property | Reinsurance | Specialty lines |
Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m |
| Current year | 40.1 | 122.5 | 57.5 | 199.2 | 209.7 | 408.0 | 1,037.0 |
| Prior year | |||||||
| – 2008 underwriting year and earlier | 0.7 | (11.4) | (10.2) | 4.6 | (10.1) | (61.8) | (88.2) |
| – 2009 underwriting year | (3.9) | (24.6) | (2.8) | (15.9) | (10.0) | – | (57.2) |
| – 2010 underwriting year | (1.3) | (3.9) | (9.1) | (8.9) | (17.9) | – | (41.1) |
| (4.5) | (39.9) | (22.1) | (20.2) | (38.0) | (61.8) | (186.5) | |
| Net insurance claims | 35.6 | 82.6 | 35.4 | 179.0 | 171.7 | 346.2 | 850.5 |
| Net insurance claims | 1.3 35.1 |
(30.7) 89.6 |
(18.8) 25.1 |
(17.4) 140.7 |
(22.1) 82.9 |
(56.9) 364.8 |
(144.6) 738.2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| – 2009 underwriting year | (0.5) | (7.9) | (12.1) | (5.9) | (3.3) | – | (29.7) |
| – 2008 underwriting year | 1.8 | (12.6) | 1.3 | (9.5) | (12.0) | – | (31.0) |
| – 2007 underwriting year and earlier | – | (10.2) | (8.0) | (2.0) | (6.8) | (56.9) | (83.9) |
| Prior year | |||||||
| Current year | 33.8 | 120.3 | 43.9 | 158.1 | 105.0 | 421.7 | 882.8 |
| 2010 | Life, accident & health \$m |
Marine \$m |
Political risks & contingency \$m |
Property \$m |
Reinsurance \$m |
Specialty lines \$m |
Total \$m |
The carrying amount and fair values of the non-current borrowings are as follows:
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| \$m | \$m | |
| Carrying value | ||
| Subordinated debt | 18.0 | 18.0 |
| Tier 2 subordinated debt | 246.8 | 250.2 |
| 264.8 | 268.2 | |
| Fair value | ||
| Subordinated debt | 18.0 | 18.0 |
| Tier 2 subordinated debt | 189.1 | 184.6 |
| 207.1 | 202.6 |
The fair value of the Tier 2 subordinated debt is based on quoted market prices. For the subordinated debt that is not quoted, a discounted cash flow model is used based on a current yield curve appropriate for the remaining term to maturity.
In November 2004, the group issued subordinated debt of US \$18m to JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. (JPMorgan). The loan is unsecured and interest is payable at the US London interbank offered rate (LIBOR) plus a margin of 3.65% per annum. The subordinated notes are due in November 2034 and have been callable at the group's option since 2009.
In October 2006, the group issued £150m of unsecured fixed/floating rate subordinated notes that are due in October 2026 with a first callable at the group's option in October 2016. Interest of 7.25% per annum is paid annually in arrears for the period up to October 2016. From October 2016, the notes will bear annual interest at the rate of 3.28% above LIBOR. The notes were assigned a credit rating of BBB- by S&P's rating services.
In April 2010 the group traded out of the interest rate swap and cross currency swap transactions. We traded out of the currency component of the original derivative transaction since this was originally intended to act as a hedge against the group's investment in its US subsidiaries. Following the change in functional and presentation currency to US dollars this hedge was no longer required.
In addition to these borrowings we operate a syndicated short-term banking facility, managed through Lloyds Banking Group plc. In June 2011 we renewed our existing syndicated short-term banking facility led by Lloyds Banking Group plc. The facility provides potential borrowings up to \$225m. The new agreement is based on a commitment fee of 0.7% per annum and any amounts drawn are charged at a margin of 1.75% per annum. The cash element of the facility will last for three years, expiring on 31 December 2014, whilst letters of credit issued under the facility can be used to provide support for the 2011, 2012 and 2013 underwriting years. The facility is currently unutilised.
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| Group | \$m | \$m |
| Reinsurance premiums payable | 251.7 | 179.3 |
| Accrued expenses including staff bonuses | 66.9 | 70.8 |
| Other payables | 5.3 | 13.9 |
| Deferred consideration payable on acquisition of MGAs | 27.7 | 13.6 |
| Due to syndicate 6107 | 11.4 | 7.8 |
| Due to syndicate 623 | 3.0 | – |
| 366.0 | 285.4 | |
| 2011 | 2010 | |
| Company | \$m | \$m |
| Other payables | 28.5 | 26.8 |
| 28.5 | 26.8 |
All other payables are payable within one year of the reporting date other than deferred consideration which is payable after one year. The carrying value approximates fair values.
| 2011 \$m |
2010 \$m |
2009 \$m |
2008 \$m |
2007 \$m |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retirement benefit obligations | – | – | – | – | 1.8 |
| Present value of funded obligations | 27.4 | 26.0 | 24.8 | 14.8 | 34.8 |
| Fair value of plan assets | 26.6 | 24.2 | 20.8 | 14.4 | 30.8 |
| Experience (losses)/gains on scheme liabilities | (0.3) | (0.2) | 0.5 | 1.6 | 0.2 |
Beazley Furlonge Limited operates a defined benefit pension scheme ("the Beazley Furlonge Limited Pension Scheme") providing benefits based on final pensionable pay, with contributions being charged to the income statement so as to spread the cost of pensions over employees' working lives with the company. The contributions are determined by a qualified actuary using the projected unit method and the most recent valuation was at 31 December 2011.
Amount recognised in the statement of financial position
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| \$m | \$m | |
| Present value of funded obligations | 27.4 | 26.0 |
| Fair value of plan assets | (26.6) | (24.2) |
| 0.8 | 1.8 | |
| Unrecognised actuarial losses | (5.4) | (4.9) |
| Asset in the statement of financial position | (4.6) | (3.1) |
| The asset in the pension scheme arose due to a prepayment of \$4.6m (2010: \$3.1m). | ||
| Amounts recognised in the income statement | ||
| Current service cost | – | – |
| Interest cost | 1.4 | 1.4 |
| Expected return on plan assets | (1.4) | (1.2) |
| 0.0 | 0.2 | |
| Movement in present value of funded obligations recognised in the statement of financial position | ||
| Balance at 1 January | 26.0 | 24.8 |
| Current service cost | – | – |
| Interest cost | 1.4 | 1.4 |
| Actuarial losses | 0.5 | 0.9 |
| Benefits paid | (0.4) | – |
| Foreign exchange loss | (0.1) | (1.1) |
| Balance at 31 December | 27.4 | 26.0 |
| Movement in fair value of plan assets recognised in the statement of financial position | ||
| Balance at 1 January | 24.2 | 20.8 |
| Expected return on plan assets | 1.4 | 1.2 |
| Actuarial gains | (0.2) | 1.6 |
| Employer contributions | 1.6 | 1.6 |
| Benefits paid | (0.4) | – |
| Foreign exchange loss | - | (1.0) |
| Balance at 31 December | 26.6 | 24.2 |
| 2011 \$m |
2010 \$m |
|
| Plan assets are comprised as follows: | ||
| Equities | 13.8 | 16.5 |
| Bonds | 12.7 | 7.7 |
| Cash | 0.1 | – |
| Total | 26.6 | 24.2 |
| The actual gain on plan assets was \$1.2m (2010: \$2.8m). | ||
| 2011 \$m |
2010 \$m |
|
| Principal actuarial assumptions | ||
| Discount rate | 4.7% | 5.4% |
| Inflation rate | 2.7% | 3.4% |
| Expected return on plan assets | 3.7% | 5.5% |
| Future salary increases | 5.5% | 6.2% |
| Future pensions increases | 2.3% | 3.0% |
| Life expectancy | 88 years | 88 years |
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| \$m | \$m | |
| Deferred tax asset | 12.5 | 9.5 |
| Deferred tax liability | (80.2) | (91.0) |
| (67.7) | (81.5) |
The movement in the net deferred income tax is as follows:
| Balance at 1 January | (81.5) | (26.2) |
|---|---|---|
| Income tax credit/(charge) | 11.0 | (55.3) |
| Foreign exchange translation differences | 2.8 | – |
| Balance at 31 December | (67.7) | (81.5) |
| Balance | Recognised | FX translation differences |
Balance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Jan 11 | in income | 31 Dec 11 | ||
| \$m | \$m | \$m | \$m | |
| Plant and equipment | 0.7 | – | – | 0.7 |
| Intangible assets | (0.5) | (0.2) | – | (0.7) |
| Other receivables | – | – | – | – |
| Trade and other payables | 2.7 | 0.5 | – | 3.2 |
| Underwriting profits | (348.8) | (52.9) | 11.8 | (389.9) |
| Tax losses | 264.4 | 63.6 | (9.0) | 319.0 |
| Net deferred income tax account | (81.5) | 11.0 | 2.8 | (67.7) |
| Balance 1 Jan 10 \$m |
Recognised in income \$m |
FX translation differences \$m |
Balance 31 Dec 10 \$m |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plant and equipment | 0.2 | 0.5 | – | 0.7 |
| Intangible assets | (0.8) | 0.3 | – | (0.5) |
| Other receivables | 0.1 | (0.1) | – | – |
| Trade and other payables | 2.9 | (0.2) | – | 2.7 |
| Underwriting profits | (37.5) | (311.3) | – | (348.8) |
| Tax losses | 8.9 | 255.5 | – | 264.4 |
| Net deferred income tax account | (26.2) | (55.3) | – | (81.5) |
The group has recognised deferred tax assets on unused tax losses to the extent that it is probable that future taxable profits will be available against which unused tax losses can be utilised, as supported by financial projections.
The group leases land and buildings under non-cancellable operating lease agreements.
The future minimum lease payments under the non-cancellable operating leases are as follows:
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| \$m | \$m | |
| No later than one year | 6.8 | 6.0 |
| Later than one year and no later than five years | 20.1 | 18.0 |
| Later than five years | 8.8 | 4.7 |
| 35.7 | 28.7 |
The group and company have related party relationships with syndicates 623 and 6107, its subsidiaries, associates and its directors.
The group received management fees and profit commissions for providing a range of management services to syndicates 623 and 6107, which are managed by the group. In addition, the group ceded portions or all of a group of insurance policies to syndicate 6107.
Details of transactions entered and the balances with these syndicates are as follows:
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| \$m | \$m | |
| Written premium ceded to syndicates | 13.8 | 13.3 |
| Other income received from syndicates | 25.3 | 25.8 |
| Services provided | 26.3 | 23.6 |
| Balances due: | ||
| Due (to)/from syndicate 623 | (3.0) | 12.2 |
| Due (to) syndicate 6107 | (11.4) | (7.8) |
| 2011 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| \$m | \$m | |
| Salaries and other short-term benefits | 10.7 | 15.4 |
| Post-employment benefits | 0.7 | 0.6 |
| Share-based remuneration | 4.8 | 4.4 |
| 16.3 | 20.4 |
Key management include executives and non-executive directors and other senior management.
Further details of directors' shareholdings and remuneration can be found in the directors' remuneration report on pages 57 to 72.
At 31 December 2011, the group had a balance receivable from the associate (Falcon Money Management Limited) of \$1.0m (2010: \$nil) and purchased services from the associate of \$7.0m (2010: \$6.2m) throughout the year. All transactions with the associate and subsidiaries are priced on an arm's length basis.
Beazley plc is the ultimate parent and the ultimate controlling party within the group.
The following is a list of all the subsidiaries in the group:
| Beazley plc direct | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country of | Ownership | Functional | investment in subsidiary | ||
| incorporation | interest | Nature of business | currency | (m) | |
| Beazley Group Limited* | England | 100% | Intermediate holding company | USD | * |
| Beazley Furlonge Holdings Limited | England | 100% | Intermediate holding company | USD | |
| Beazley Furlonge Limited | England | 100% | Lloyd's underwriting agents | GBP | |
| Beazley Investments Limited | England | 100% | Investment company | USD | |
| Beazley Underwriting Limited | England | 100% | Underwriting at Lloyd's | USD | |
| Beazley Management Limited | England | 100% Intermediate management company | GBP | ||
| Beazley Staff Underwriting Limited | England | 100% | Underwriting at Lloyd's | USD | |
| Beazley Solutions Limited | England | 100% | Insurance services | GBP | |
| Beazley Finance Ltd | England | 100% | Intermediate holding company | GBP | |
| Beazley Capital Management Ltd | England | 100% | Investment services | GBP | |
| Beazley Underwriting Services Ltd | England | 100% | Insurance services | GBP | |
| Beazley DAS Limited | England | 100% | Dividend access scheme | GBP | |
| Tasman Corporate Limited | England | 100% | Underwriting at Lloyd's | GBP | |
| Beazley Re Limited | Ireland | 100% | Underwriting at Lloyd's | USD | 747.2 |
| Beazley Underwriting Pty Ltd | Australia | 100% | Insurance services | AUD | |
| Beyond Group Holdings Pty Ltd | Australia | 100% | Intermediate holding company | AUD | |
| Blue-GUM Special Risks Pty Ltd | Australia | 100% | Insurance services | AUD | |
| Australian Income Protection Pty Ltd | Australia | 100% | Insurance services | AUD | |
| Beazley USA Services, Inc. | USA | 100% | Insurance services | USD | |
| Beazley Holdings, Inc. | USA | 100% | Holding company | USD | |
| Beazley Group (USA) General Partnership | USA | 100% | General partnership | USD | |
| Beazley Insurance Company, Inc. | USA | 100% | Underwrite admitted lines | USD | |
| Beazley Limited | Hong Kong | 100% | Insurance services | HKD | |
| Beazley Pte. Limited | Singapore | 100% | Underwriting at Lloyd's | SGD | |
| 747.2 |
*Beazley plc holds direct investment in Beazley Group Limited of \$1.
The following amounts are subject to a deed of charge in favour of Lloyd's to secure underwriting commitments.
| Underwriting | Underwriting | Underwriting | |
|---|---|---|---|
| year | year | year | |
| 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | |
| £m | £m | £m | |
| Debt securities and other fixed income securities | 482.9 | 505.0 | 492.2 |
The parent company has provided a financial guarantee in favour of its subsidiary Beazley Insurance Company, Inc. which unconditionally guarantees the payment of amounts due to third-party reinsurers in the event of the inability of the subsidiary company to meet its obligations.
The group used the following exchange rates to translate foreign currency assets, liabilities, income and expenses into US dollars, being the group's presentation currency:
| 2011 | 2010 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average | Year end spot | Average | Year end spot | |
| Pound sterling | 0.62 | 0.65 | 0.65 | 0.65 |
| Canadian dollar | 0.99 | 1.02 | 1.03 | 1.00 |
| Euro | 0.72 | 0.77 | 0.77 | 0.75 |
On 19 April 2011 Beazley plc through its 100% subsidiary Beazley Underwriting Pty Limited purchased the entire share capital of two managing general agencies (MGAs), Australian Income Protection (AIP) and Blue-GUM Special Risks (Blue-GUM), along with the holding company of Blue-GUM, Beyond Group Holdings Pty Ltd, for a an initial cash consideration of \$11.7m and a deferred cash consideration of \$13.7m, bringing the total expected consideration to \$25.4m. The deferred cash consideration is contingent on the business acquiring specific targets linked to premium growth and profitability over a four year period ending on 31 December 2014. The combined purchases have been accounted for as an acquisition.
The fair value of the tangible net assets acquired was \$4.9m, and the fair value of intangible assets acquired was \$10.3m, resulting in goodwill on acquisition of \$10.3m. The intangible assets acquired relate to the existing customer relationships of the business.
This acquisition had no material impact on the revenue or loss of the group for the period. In accordance with IFRS 3 'Business combinations' the assets and liabilities as at the acquisition date are stated at their initial fair values and may be remeasured as and when further evidence of the appropriate fair values emerges within a period of 12 months from the date of acquisition.
There are no events that are material to the operations of the group that have been announced since the reporting date.
Accumulations of insurance loss exposures which result from underwriting multiple risks that are exposed to common causes of loss.
The reinsurer indemnifies an insurance company (the reinsured) for an aggregate (or cumulative) amount of losses in excess of a specified aggregate amount.
A.M. Best is a worldwide insurance-rating and information agency whose ratings are recognised as an ideal benchmark for assessing the financial strength of insurance related organisations, following a rigorous quantitative and qualitative analysis of a company's balance sheet strength, operating performance and business profile. Beazley plc obtained an A rating as did Beazley Insurance Company, Inc.
A contracted agreement between a managing agent and a coverholder under which the coverholder is authorised to enter into contracts of insurance for the account of the members of the syndicate concerned, subject to specified terms and conditions.
This is the maximum amount of premiums that can be accepted by a syndicate. Capacity also refers to the amount of insurance coverage allocated to a particular policyholder or in the marketplace in general.
These are assets that do not pay a regular income and target an increase in value over the long-term. They will typically have a higher risk and volatility than that of the core portfolio. Currently these are the hedge fund assets.
A form of excess of loss reinsurance which, subject to a specified limit, indemnifies the reinsured company for the amount of loss in excess of a specified retention with respect to an accumulation of losses resulting from a catastrophic event or series of events.
Demand by an insured for indemnity under an insurance contract.
Ratio, in percentage terms, of net insurance claims to net earned premiums. The calculation is performed excluding the impact of foreign exchange on non-monetary items.
Ratio, in percentage terms, of the sum of net insurance claims, expenses for acquisition of insurance contracts and administrative expenses to net earned premiums. This is also the sum of the expense ratio and the claims ratio. The calculation is performed excluding the impact of foreign exchange on non-monetary items.
A firm either in the United Kingdom or overseas authorised by a managing agent under the terms of a binding authority to enter into contracts of insurance in the name of the members of the syndicate concerned, subject to certain written terms and conditions. A Lloyd's broker can act as a coverholder.
Costs incurred for the acquisition or the renewal of insurance policies (eg brokerage, premium levy and staff related costs) which are capitalised and amortised over the term of the contracts.
Ratio, in pence and cents, calculated by dividing the consolidated profit after tax by the weighted average number of ordinary shares issued, excluding shares owned by the group. For calculating diluted earnings per share the number of shares and profit or loss for the year is adjusted for all dilutive potential ordinary shares such as share options granted to employees.
A form of excess of loss reinsurance which, subject to a specified limit, indemnifies the reinsured company against the amount of loss in excess of a specified retention with respect to each risk involved in each loss.
Ratio, in percentage terms, of the sum of expenses for acquisition of insurance contracts and administrative expenses to net earned premiums. The calculation is performed excluding the impact of foreign exchange on non-monetary items.
A reinsurance risk that is placed by means of a separately negotiated contract as opposed to one that is ceded under a reinsurance treaty.
Amounts payable by the insured, excluding any taxes or duties levied on the premium, including any brokerage and commission deducted by intermediaries.
An insurance market where prevalent prices are high, with restrictive terms and conditions offered by insurers.
Reinsurance coverage limits for multiple events.
These are anticipated or likely claims that may result from an insured event although no claims have been reported so far.
An international panel of accounting experts responsible for developing IAS/IFRS.
Standards formulated by the IASB with the intention of achieving internationally comparable financial statements. Since 2002, the standards adopted by the IASB have been referred to as International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Until existing standards are renamed, they continue to be referred to as International Accounting Standards (IAS).
The underwriter of a syndicate who is responsible for setting the terms of an insurance or reinsurance contract that is subscribed by more than one syndicate and who generally has primary responsibility for handling any claims arising under such a contract.
The proportion of an insurance or reinsurance risk that is accepted by an underwriter or which an underwriter is willing to accept.
A company that is permitted by Lloyd's to manage the underwriting of a syndicate.
An insurance intermediary acting as an agent on behalf of an insurer.
A type of insurance where the claims may be made a few years after the period of insurance has expired.
Ratio, in pence and cents, calculated by dividing the net assets (total equity) by the number of shares issued.
Net premiums written is equal to gross premiums written less outward reinsurance premiums written.
Provision for claims that have already been incurred at the reporting date but have either not yet been reported or not yet been fully settled.
The premium expressed as a percentage of the sum insured or limit of indemnity.
A special purpose syndicate (SPS) created to operate as a reinsurance "sidecar" to Beazley's treaty account, capitalising on Beazley's position in the treaty reinsurance market.
A reinsurance which closes a year of account by transferring the responsibility for discharging all the liabilities that attach to that year of account (and any year of account closed into that year) plus the right to buy any income due to the closing year of account into an open year of account in return for a premium.
Limits imposed upon underwriters for retention of exposures by the group after the application of reinsurance programmes.
Ratio, in percentage terms calculated by dividing the consolidated profit after tax by the average daily total equity.
The reinsurance of the reinsurance account. It serves to 'lay-off' risk.
This term may variously refer to:
Specialty reinsurance company designed to provide additional capacity to a specific insurance company. They operate by purchasing a portion or all of a group of insurance policies, typically cat exposures. They have become quite prominent in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as a vehicle to add riskbearing capacity, and for investors to participate in the potential profits resulting from sharp price increases.
A type of insurance where claims are usually made during the term of the policy or shortly after the policy has expired. Property insurance is an example of short-tail business.
An insurance market where prevalent prices are low, and terms and conditions offered by insurers are less restrictive.
An insurer that underwrites surplus lines insurance in the USA. Lloyd's underwriters are surplus lines insurers in all jurisdictions of the USA except Kentucky and the US Virgin Islands.
The increase in the share price plus the value of any first and second dividends paid and proposed during the year.
A reinsurance contract under which the reinsurer agrees to offer and to accept all risks of certain size within a defined class.
The portion of premium income in the business year that is attributable to periods after the balance date is accounted for as unearned premiums in the underwriting provisions.
If you have finished reading this report and no longer wish to keep it, please pass it on to other interested readers, return it to Beazley or recycle it. Thank you.
Design and produced by: The College www.the-college.com
Beazley online Annual report and accounts 2011 www.reports.beazley.com/2011
2 Northwood Avenue Northwood Park Santry Demesne Santry Dublin 9 | Ireland
Phone: +353 (0)1 854 4700 Fax: +353 (0)1 842 8481
Registered number: 102680
www.beazley.com
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