Lloyd's of London syndicates trading in 2025 delivered a weighted average result of 18.8% of net premium earned, excluding Funds In Syndicate investment returns, edging past the prior year and running well ahead of longer-run averages, according to Syndicate Research Limited (SRL).
The figure compares with 18% in 2024 and tracks above five- and nine-year averages of 14.5% and 7.9%. Individual results varied sharply, with the best and worst outcomes at +81% and -18%. The market's combined ratio averaged 85.7%, well inside the nine-year benchmark of 96.2%.
SRL attributed part of the outperformance to a relatively contained US hurricane season, which lifted returns for Excess of Loss writers in particular.
The syndicate-level picture aligns with market-wide numbers released earlier this year, when Lloyd's reported a 10.1% rise in pre-tax profit to £10.6 billion for 2025 on gross written premium up 4.2% to £57.9 billion.
The corporation's combined ratio came in at 87.6% against 86.9% a year earlier, the major claims ratio dropped to 5.8% from 7.8%, and investment returns climbed to £6.0 billion from £4.9 billion. Central solvency rose to 496% from 435%.
Investment income provided a further tailwind, with returns excluding FIS averaging 7.7% of NPE against a nine-year average of 3.5% as fixed-income portfolios benefited from elevated interest rates. SRL expects investment performance to matter more in 2026 as (re)insurance pricing softens.
Broker data from the January 2026 renewals underlines that warning. Howden Re reported property catastrophe rates falling by an average of 14.7% on a risk-adjusted basis, the sharpest drop since 2014, with European programmes down 10% to 20% and London casualty business easing 5% to 10%.
Gallagher Re, meanwhile, clocked a 32% fall in its global cyber aggregate excess-of-loss rate index at 1/1. Aviation bucked the trend after 2025 losses, while marine war, energy and political violence lines have repriced at several multiples of pre-conflict levels following the Iran war.
Read more: Lloyd’s attracts fresh capital
Top-quartile syndicates generated a weighted average profit of 32.1% in 2025, against 6.5% for the bottom quartile, in a year when major losses ran at roughly half the nine-year average of 11.2%. SRL said the divergence is entrenched, with top- and bottom-quartile performance separated by 15.1 percentage points over five years and 13.8 points over nine.
Chaucer's Syndicate 1176 led the market in 2025, extending a pattern of sizeable profits in years without a major nuclear loss. Chaucer describes the vehicle as the world's leading insurer of nuclear risk, covering civil nuclear power stations, fuel cycle operations and radioactive material transit.
The remaining four top performers all sit within SRL's Excess of Loss peer group, which posted a weighted average profit of 49%, though SRL cautioned that return-on-capital figures will be materially lower given the higher capital charges attached to those books.
At the other end, four of the five weakest performers posted losses, and all five are comparatively recent entrants. S&P Global Ratings has previously found maturity to be a key determinant of performance at Lloyd's, with mature syndicates outperforming newer ones by around 7% on weighted-average combined ratios — a gap that widens in heavier catastrophe years.
