Midland 4thQ Premiums Up 8.9 Percent

The Midland Co., a provider of specialty insurance products and services, reported fourth-quarter 2002 net income before capital gains/losses of $7.7 million, or 43 cents per share, compared with $9.3 million, or 51 cents per share, in 2001.

These results were ahead of the previously announced expectations. Net income (including capital gains/losses) also was $7.7 million, or 43 cents per share, for the quarter compared to net income of $9.7 million, or 53 cents per share, last year, which included $0.4 million, or 2 cents per share, of after-tax realized investment gains.

For the fourth quarter, total property and casualty gross written premiums for Midland subsidiary American Modern Insurance Group grew 8.9 percent to $136.7 million, with manufactured housing gross written premium declining 2.5 percent to $73.3 million. American Modern writes coverage for manufactured housing, site-built homes, motorcycles, watercraft, snowmobiles and recreational vehicles.

The decrease in manufactured housing premium reflects the difficult market conditions that continue to exist in the company’s point-of-sale channel, the company said. Gross written premium in all other property and casualty specialty lines – such as motorcycle, site-built dwelling, mortgage fire, recreational vehicle and collector automobile products – collectively grew 26.1 percent to $63.4 million.

For the year, American Modern’s total property and casualty gross written premiums grew 5.9 percent to $588.2 million, even though manufactured housing gross written premium declined 9.6 percent to $304.1 million. Gross written premium in all other property and casualty specialty lines grew collectively 29.7 percent to $284.1 million for the year.

Midland CEO John Hayden said that fourth-quarter results reflected more than $10.9 million, or 61 cents per share, in after-tax losses from catastrophes, including Hurricane Lili in October, a series of tornados in November and winter storm activity in December. He said the catastrophes added 11.2 percentage points to the company’s total combined ratio.