German reinsurer Hannover Re has said that pricing for German reinsurance contracts renewed in January are likely to be stable, "given the state of the primary insurance market". Speaking at a news conference in Baden-Baden, Hannover Re Germany Reinsurance head Michael Pickel said that "we expect at least stable prices in natural catastrophe reinsurance in Germany". He anticipated a fall in reinsurance rates for commercial property as a result of fierce competition, but had hopes that non-proportional contracts in vehicle liability might go up. Mr Pickel said that Hannover Re now had a market share of about 16% in the German p/c market, and that the reinsurer hoped to "continue the profitable expansion".

Bermuda-based PartnerRe Ltd and Arch Capital Group both posted improved results for the first nine months of the year owing to better underwriting and investment returns. PartnerRe swung to net income of $1.18bn from a year-earlier loss of $48.7m, as net realized and unrealized investment results swung to a gain of $566.6m from the year-ago loss of $595.3m. An 18% drop in claim losses to $1.55bn more than offset the reinsurer's 5.5% drop in net earned premiums to $2.78bn. Underwriting income nearly tripled to $349m from $114m, while the combined ratio improved to 82.5% from 91.4%. President and chief executive Patrick Thiele said that the group's reinsurance results "benefited from a low level of large losses while our investment operations continued to participate fully in the improvement experienced by the global capital markets", saying that operating return on equity was 22%. At insurer/reinsurer Arch, nine-month earnings jumped 39% to $566.4m, as underwriting income climbed 70% to $256.8m, net realized investment gains more than doubled to $48.8m and net impairment losses dropped 42% to $61.6m. Net earned premiums fell 0.6% to $2.13bn, while the combined ratio improved to 88% from 92.9%.

Global broker Willis Group Holdings has closed the first nine months of the year with net income of $359m, an increase of 49% that reflected a 22% rise in commissions and fees to $2.40bn. The group's Q3 net income more than doubled to $79m from $36m, as commissions and fees increased 28% to $714m. "We continue to get strong contributions from each segment, despite the marketplace challenges we face, which are especially pronounced in the US, UK and Ireland", said chairman and chief executive Joe Plumeri.

The Society of Lloyd's has reported steady progress in its Q3 interim statement, with the excess of central assets over solvency shortfalls rising to £2.548bn ($4.153bn) by September 30 2009, compared with £2.497bn on June 30 and £2.475bn at the end of last year. There were no events during the third quarter that caused material changes to Lloyd's expectations for the full year. Lloyd's said that favourable market movements in equities, government bonds and corporate bonds "have resulted in investment returns somewhat above the very modest levels which might be predicted from the low prevailing levels of interest rates and risk-free yields, both in Q3 and the year to date". Overall, the Society's investment return for the first nine months of the year was plus £110m, up from £20m at the end of H1. The underlying figures are better than this, since they include a foreign exchange loss of £17m on euro-denominated assets. These are offset by an equivalent reduction in the sterling value of the relative liabilities.