JLT FORECASTS SUSTAINED INSURANCE INCREASES AS PROFITS RISE

UK insurance broker Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT) has posted first-half pre-tax profits of £42.3m, up 18% on the same period in 2000. Turnover was up by 26% to £173.3m, driven by a number of recent acquisitions. Outgoing chief executive Ken Carter forecast that premium rates would continue rising for longer than the two years the group had forecast back in February, partly because of the recent collapses of locally based insurer Independent and Australia’s HIH. He also noted that JLT was “almost certainly” a creditor of Independent, but said that in 2000 it had placed less than 2% of its business with the failed insurer.