The world’s leading insurance and reinsurance market has suffered a slump in profit after being weighed down by bond market jitters.

Lloyd’s of London took a 16.7 per cent hit to its pre-tax profit £3.5bn for the first six months of 2026.

Gross written premiums leapt 6.9 per cent to £34.7bn, up from £32.5bn last year. The growth was fuelled by a 15.8 per cent jump in volume from new and existing syndicates, which offset a 6.7 per cent drop in market-wide prices.

Lloyd’s said its bottom-line fell largely because investment returns dropped to £1.8bn, adding that geopolitical tensions and inflationary pressures hampered its bond assets despite a strong showing in equities.

Stripping out the investment turbulence, Lloyd’s core business improved as the market reported an underwriting result of £1.9bn, up from £1.5bn. Its headline combined ratio, a key measure of insurance profitability, improved to 90.8 per cent, driven largely by a quiet six months for major natural disasters. 

Chief executive Patrick Tiernan backed the “solid aggregate set of results,” telling the market that “underwriting discipline and innovation are the keys to maintaining outperformance.”

Marketplace focuses on four-point strategy

Lloyd’s confirmed it remains firmly on track to deliver against its targets set out in March, in which it posted a pre-tax profit of £10.6bn for 2025.

The marketplace doubled down on a four-point growth plan Tiernan revealed earlier this year, which focused on underwriting excellence, operational efficiency, capital optimisation, and staff retention. Speaking at the time, Tiernan said, “This is how we will advance and protect Lloyd’s as the pre-eminent global marketplace for insurance risk.”

In July, Lloyd’s of London released an independent legal review on the marketplace’s former chief executive John Neal, which found that he fell “significantly below” expected standards in his workplace relationship with a colleague.