Financial Update

The Club’s financial position remains strong as free reserves grew by $54 million to $559 million as at 20 February 2020. This was driven by an exceptional investment return of 9.6% for the year. The Club continues to meet all of its regulatory capital requirements and Standard & Poor’s reaffirmed the Club’s A (Stable) rating in December 2019.

The Club benefitted from reasonably good large claims experience on its own account for the 2019/20 policy year. However, other clubs’ Pool claims were higher than usual. While the recent renewal was firmer than recent years, further movement is needed to bring premiums in line with risk. This is important to maintaining a healthy and robust P&I sector, particularly in these challenging times. Members have benefitted from reduced premium rates in recent years, supported by the strength of the Club’s financial position. However, the Club’s combined ratio of 120% shows that premium rates have fallen below the level necessary to cover claims and expenses. The recent renewal was firmer and the Club has emerged stronger through careful selection of risk. Mutual tonnage remained stable at 142 million GT with significant additional Chartered tonnage.

The full Report & Accounts will be availble from July.

This Solvency and Financial Condition Report (“SFCR”) covers the Business and Performance of the Association, its System of Governance, Risk Profile, Valuation for Solvency Purposes and Capital Management.

The ultimate Administrative Body that has the responsibility for all of these matters is the Association’s Board of Directors, with the help of various governance and control functions that it has put in place to monitor and manage the business. The Consolidated Group Solvency Capital Requirement (“SCR”) has been calculated using the standard formula. The Group intends to seek approval to use its internal model, which has already been approved for the subsidiary undertaking, for the calculation of the SCR at Group level.

For SCR purposes the Association’s total eligible own funds stood at $637 million. This includes ancillary own funds available to the Association’s subsidiary undertaking, The United Kingdom Mutual Assurance Association (Europe) Limited (“UK Europe” or “UKE”) as approved by UK Europe’s regulator.

The AOF available to UKE represents only the element of funds that would be retained within UKE in the event of a supplementary call. Although the balance of funds are payable to UKB these are not incorporated within Group eligible own funds. The Group intends to apply for the full AOF allowance which, if approved, would increase tier 2 eligible own funds by $148 million.

Eligible own funds cover the SCR (of $375 million) by 169.9% and the Minimum Consolidated Group SCR (“MCR”) (of $40.4 million) by 1,500.4%.