Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer, believes it is on course to achieve its promised profit of five billion euros this year.

"Overall, the prospects are very promising", said CEO Joachim Wenning at the Munich-based Group's New Year's reception on Tuesday evening. "We have a tailwind from property and casualty reinsurance." Prices for reinsurance cover have been rising there for years - without the primary insurers and brokers rebelling against this. "Customers are very supportive. They are happy when we make the same capacities available," said Wenning.

Munich Re's largest line of business alone is expected to contribute two billion euros to the anticipated profit, with 1.5 billion euros coming from life reinsurance. The remainder is to come in roughly equal parts from the primary insurance subsidiary Ergo and from specialty insurance business, Wenning said. All lines are currently doing well.

Munich Re's CEO indicated that the company had achieved its profit expectations for the past year, which had only been raised to around EUR 4.5bn in December: "It was a very good year", he said, referring to the increased forecast. Munich Re had achieved this despite average natural catastrophe losses, fluctuating capital markets, inflation and rising interest rates. "So it wasn't just luck."

(Report by Alexander Hübner; edited by Sabine Wollrab. If you have any queries, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)