German reinsurance giant Munich Re Wednesday said it had posted a drop in first-quarter profits after taking a hit from claims linked to the devastating earthquakes that struck Türkiye in early February.
The group, which covers insurance firms against risks, said net profit fell by 14% year-over-year in January-March to 1.27 billion euros ($1.4 billion), compared with 1.48 billion euros a year earlier.
Claims for major losses from natural catastrophes were "higher than expected" over the quarter, Munich Re's Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Christoph Jurecka said, totaling 870 million euros.
The company already said last month that profit in the quarter would be "around 1.3 billion euros."
Prior to that release, analysts had expected a profit of just over 1 billion euros, according to a consensus forecast published by Munich Re.
The powerful quakes on Feb. 6 that ripped through Türkiye's southeastern region, also severely hit Syria, killed over 50,000 people, flattened hundreds of thousands of buildings and inflicted severe infrastructural damage.
The disaster "was one of the most catastrophic we have seen in recent history," said Jurecka, costing Munich Re 600 million euros alone.
Revenues from insurance contracts climbed over 7% to 14.2 billion euros year-over-year, boosted by higher prices and new businesses in Asia and Latin America.
The group said it was confident it would still meet its target of posting a full-year net profit of 4 billion euros in 2023.
It warned, however, that its forecast faced "considerable uncertainty" because of the war in Ukraine, market volatility and "fragile macroeconomic developments."
