The biggest European insurance group, Allianz, is sticking with its full-year forecast even though first quarter results were hit by a triplet of Asian disasters.
Net group profit fell by 45.2% to €857m, the insurance company said in a statement that added to provisional figures released last week.
'Despite the difficult operating environment Allianz remains on track to reach its operating profit target for 2011 of €8 billion, plus or minus €0.5 billion,' Allianz said.
Finance director Oliver Baete was quoted as saying that 'for Allianz, the past quarter took one of the hardest hits from natural catastrophes of any quarter in the last two decades.'
As well as the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the group was exposed to losses from devastating floods and a typhoon in Australia in January and February, and an earthquake in New Zealand in late February.
It faced costs from those catastrophes of €737m in the three month period, roughly one third more than in the same time last year.
First quarter sales fell by 2.2% to €29.9 billion and Allianz's operating profit was 4.2% lower at €1.66 billion.
Insurers and re-insurers worldwide have told a similar story as the string of disasters slammed first quarter results.
In Japan alone, the government has estimated that direct damage from the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami, which also triggered the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl 25 years ago, could reach $300 billion.
