Bermuda-based reinsurer, LaSalle Re Holdings Ltd., was hard hit by Hurricane Georges and expects to declare a fourth quarter loss.

But LaSalle Re appeared to remain on course for a profitable year end result.

The company, which writes mostly property catastrophe reinsurance, said Friday that they were anticipating announcing quarterly earnings that would be significantly below the 33 cents per share previously estimated by analysts.

In fact, the company anticipates reporting a net loss for the quarter, "primarily due to the impact of Hurricane Georges, in conjunction with other loss activity,'' a statement said.

"We are in the risk business,'' said chairman, president and CEO Victor H.

Blake, "whereby we absorb a share of catastrophe losses which would otherwise fall upon primary insurers.

"A quarter such as this will occur at some point over the course of an extended period of time, and substantiates the value of our product and the service we provide to our customers.

"In spite of the anticipated quarterly results, the company will report a profitable result for the fiscal year ended September 30, 1998.'' For the first three quarters to June 30, LaSalle Re was consistent with Bermuda market trends of reduced catastrophe writings, as companies competed in a soft market of increased capacity.

Like other Bermuda market companies, LaSalle insisted on underwriting discipline, refusing to write business at prices that had become too depressed.

This year Bermuda reinsurers are absorbing one of the few tests they have experienced since they were formed in the early 1990s.

On August 4, commenting on third quarter results, Mr. Blake pointed out: "Our losses reflect the significant number of worldwide weather events that occurred in the quarter.'' Losses and loss expenses for the third quarter had jumped to $23.6 million or 56.1 percent of net premiums earned, compared with $4.5 million or 9.7 percent of premiums earned for the same quarter the year before. The loss ratio pushed the combined ratio to 77.3 percent, still a highly desirable measure of underwriting profitability by industry standards, but by far poorer than the firm's stunning 33.8 percent performance for the same period the year before.

It brought the combined ratio for the first nine months up to 65 percent from 39.9 percent in the comparative three quarters from the year before.

The company still produced unaudited net income for the fist nine months of $56.2 million, down 28.3 percent from the year before. The third quarter alone produced net income that was half the profit of the third quarter the year before.

LaSalle Re Holdings Limited, through its operating subsidiary, LaSalle Re Ltd., writes high-severity reinsurance on a worldwide basis, including hurricane risks.

Hurricane Georges this summer caused $2.5 billion in insured property damage in Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and four Gulf Coast states.

A just released report from the Property Claim Services (PCS) unit of the Insurance Services Office, Inc. (ISO) expects US insurers to pay homeowners and businesses $3.66 billion for this year's third-quarter catastrophe losses, compared with $510 million for the quarter a year ago.

Combined with the $4.6-billion payments to policyholders for property damage in the first half of this year, the industry's catastrophe losses for the first nine months of the year total $8.3 billion, compared with $2.35 billion a year ago.

This year's third-quarter catastrophe losses were the third worst third-quarter losses in history.