Australian insurers tipped for big results, AMP payout eyed

AMP may post about an 18 per cent rise in annual operating profit tomorrow and return more than A$1 billion ($1.1 billion) to shareholders.

AMP, which has Australia's largest network of financial planners, and operations in New Zealand, is the first domestic insurer to report this earnings season, and investors expect strong fund inflows to have buoyed both AMP and its smaller life rival, AXA Asia Pacific Holdings.

"We're certainly expecting a pretty solid result and potentially a capital return of that quantity," Argo Investments' Rob Patterson said.

Among the general insurers, analysts expect QBE Insurance, the second-biggest underwriter in the Lloyd's of London market, to report annual net profit of about A$1.1 billion, its first above the A$1 billion threshold. That would equate to 2005 profit growth of 30 per cent, according to the average forecast from seven analysts polled by Reuters.

Global industry insured losses from natural disasters, such as hurricanes Dennis, Emily, Katrina, Rita and Wilma in the United States, almost doubled in 2005 to more than US$75 billion ($111 billion), German re-insurer Munich Re said in December.

QBE, operating in 38 countries, said last year its estimated net claims from Hurricane Katrina were well within allowances it had put aside for big catastrophe claims, and it had significantly reduced its exposure to areas at risk to large natural disasters.

AMP chief executive Andrew Mohl said in September AMP could look at a further capital return in 2007.

AXA Asia Pacific as well as IAG, the country's largest car and home insurer, are expanding in Asia in an effort to secure longer term growth outside their main domestic markets.

Promina, Australia's second-largest car and home insurer, is also looking at overseas expansion.

- REUTERS