Northbridge Financial Corporation (NFBC) reported a 6 per cent increase in direct premiums written in 2023. These reached US$2.4 billion, up US$140.5 million over the previous year.
Converted into Canadian dollars at the average rate set by the Bank of Canada in 2023, this means that NFBC collected C$3.2 billion in premiums in 2023. In 2022, the volume had almost reached the C$3 billion mark.
These results can be found in a press release issued by Fairfax Financial Holdings, which published these quarterly results and the provisional annual balance sheet on Feb. 15.
Since 2022, Fairfax no longer provides its results in Canadian currency. In addition, the company no longer discloses the underwriting results of its various general insurance subsidiaries, nor the operating results of NFBC.
Premiums
Northbridge's gross premiums written totaled US$623.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. This is an increase of US$28.1 million, or 4.9 per cent, over gross premiums written reported in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Net premiums written increased by 5.2 per cent in the last quarter of 2023 compared with the same period in 2022. They reached US$557 million at Dec. 31, 2023.
For the full year, net premiums written totalled $2.1 billion in 2023. This is an increase of 4.2 per cent over the previous year.
Combined ratio
NFBC's combined ratio stood at 91.5 per cent for the final quarter of 2023. This represents an improvement of one percentage point on the combined ratio of 92.5 per cent recorded in the same quarter of 2022.
For the full year, NFBC's combined ratio stood at 91.1 per cent, a 1.7 percentage point slip compared with the combined ratio of 89.4 per cent recorded in 2022.
Northbridge's combined ratio in 2023 is lower than that of Fairfax's other North American general insurance subsidiaries, and is also lower than that of all general insurance and reinsurance subsidiaries combined.
For all North American subsidiaries, Fairfax's insurance earnings were US$977.1 million in 2023, compared with US$964 million in 2022.
On a premium volume exceeding US$29 billion in general insurance and reinsurance in 2023, Fairfax's insurance result was US$4.1 billion last year.
Net income attributable to Fairfax common shareholders reached US$4.4 billion in 2023, compared with the US$3.4 billion reported in 2022.
In 2023, losses related to the fires in the Hawaiian archipelago totaled US$183.6 million for Fairfax.
Total catastrophe losses for 2023 amounted to US$897 million, which had an impact of 4 percentage points on the combined general insurance ratio.
These catastrophic losses are lower than those of 2022, which approached US$1.3 billion for Fairfax, of which US$567 million related to damage caused by Hurricane Ian in the southeastern United States in September 2022.
