MUNICH Re's preliminary figures show a profit of EUR 0.71 billion for 2011, down 70% on the EUR 2.4 billion profit it made in 2010 due to "a series of severe earthquakes and many weather-related catastrophes", reported this week the reinsurance group. Thus Munich Re estimates its claims costs from the earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand at around EUR 1.5 billion for each event.

 "We have never experienced a year like 2011 before - extreme burdens from natural catastrophes combined with the financial crisis, which flared up again after the slight recovery in 2009 and 2010. Given the huge strains these placed on results, it is a notable achievement that we still posted a profit of EUR 0.71 billion", said Jorg SCHNEIDER, CFO, MUNICH Re.

MUNICH Re expects a "significantly improved technical result" in 2012 and says that, subject to claims experience, profits could return to pre-2011 levels.

Gross premiums written by the Group in the financial year 2011 rose significantly by almost 9% to EUR 49.6 billion. "The Group's investment result decreased by 22% to EUR 6.8 billion marked in particular by an increase of EUR 1.2 billion to EUR 1.6 billion in the negative balance from write-ups and write-downs. Expenses for write-downs of Greek government securities alone totalled EUR 1.2 billion, impacting the consolidated result with EUR 0.2 billion", the company announced.