Hiscox CEO attributes profit jump to 2012 catastrophe fall

“We’ve had a very good COR and good investment returns, and those two together have driven a very nice profit,” he said.

One of the major reasons for this, according to Mr Masojada, was the absence of big catastrophes: “We only had two big events in 2012 … compared to 2011 it was a much less catastrophe-driven year.”

Addressing the drop in profit for the UK retail division, from £49m in 2011 to £45m last year, Mr Masojada cited two causes.

“We had some more storm and flood losses - it went from