Hanover Insurance Sees Loss In Q2 Amid $262 Mln Catastrophe Losses; Stock Down In Premarket

(RTTNews) - Hanover Insurance Group, Inc. (THG) announced Thursday preliminary second-quarter estimate for net loss of $69.2 million or $1.94 per basic share.

Loss from continuing operations would be $70 million or $1.96 per share. Operating loss after income taxes would be $68.3 million or $1.91 per basic share.

On average, seven analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect earnings of $1.33 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

The company estimates second-quarter catastrophe losses of about $262 million, before taxes, or 18.5 points of net earned premium. Second-quarter catastrophe losses have been stemmed from 19 convective storms across multiple states. Hail damage represents the majority of reported losses and primarily impacts the company's Personal Lines business.

John Roche, president and chief executive officer at Hanover, said, "We experienced significant catastrophe losses in the second quarter, which according to industry estimates, is expected to be the worst second quarter for U.S. catastrophe losses since 2011, and potentially the industry's costliest quarter for hail losses in history.... Excluding catastrophes, our second quarter results are in line with our expectations, due to solid net investment income and strong results in our Specialty and Core Commercial businesses, partially offset by the continuing impact of inflationary trends in Personal Lines."

Taking catastrophe loss estimates, Hanover expects to report a second-quarter combined ratio of 111.3 percent, and combined ratio, excluding catastrophes, of 92.8 percent.

In pre-market activity on the NYSE, the shares were trading at $108.00, down 3.71 percent.

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