US Terrorist attack of 11 September and indication of interim results

Further to the announcement of 13 September, BRiT is not materially involved in the direct insurance losses arising from the World Trade Center, the two airlines concerned, life and health claims.
September 20, 2001

It has potential exposures from various airport coverages. The Group's loss will fall mainly on the reinsurance sector where BRiT specialises. BRiT's principal exposures are to certain primary insurers who may have direct insurance claims emanating from the events, or ultimately some of their reinsurers. The potential claims are especially severe because of the range of probable insured interests. BRiT has assumed that the potential aviation claims could be settled as four separate losses and that these will exhaust available limits on both the Airline All Risk Coverage and the Airport Operators' Coverage for three out of the four incidents. BRiT also believes it has applied conservative assumptions on the potential property, business interruption and workers' compensation claims. These assumptions do not constitute an admission of liability or an estimate of the total original insured loss, but are merely a basis for the Group’s own internal calculations.

BRiT has also assumed that war exclusions do not apply, that the US and UK governments do not intervene and that aviation related losses largely fall to the 2000 year of account and that the property losses fall to the 2001 year. After taking account of recoveries that would be made from its various reinsurance programmes, BRiT estimates a net cost, before tax, of £69.7 million which equates to a pre-tax cost of 29p per BRiT share. This estimate excludes reinstatement premium (both inwards and outwards) and any consequent premium adjustments. As regards the quality of the Group's reinsurers, 96 per cent of potential recoveries are from counterparties rated in the single "A" range and above.

BRiT's interim statement will be published on Monday 24 September when the Group anticipates reporting a pre-tax profit in the region of £1.2 million for the six months ended 30 June 2001 and an operating profit after applying the long term rate of return on investments in excess of £6.5 million.

If past patterns are repeated, it is expected that premium rates will increase after an event of this nature, particularly on catastrophe and excess of loss accounts. This, and the global environment of hardening rates, should over time mitigate the financial impact to the Group of this tragic event.

Contacts
Jo Welman, Chairman, BRiT Insurance Holdings PLC
020 7984 8515

Neil Eckert, CEO, BRiT Insurance Holdings PLC
020 7984 8510

David Haggie, Haggie Financial
020 7417 8989

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US Terrorist attack of 11 September and indication of interim results

Further to the announcement of 13 September, BRiT is not materially involved in the direct insurance losses arising from the World Trade Center, the two airlines concerned, life and health claims.September 20, 2001

Further to the announcement of 13 September, BRiT is not materially involved in the direct insurance losses arising from the World Trade Center, the two airlines concerned, life and health claims.
September 20, 2001