Lancashire Holdings Limited made more in the first three months of this year than it did in the first quarter of 2011, despite the fact that the company’s performance was hurt by the Costa Concordia shipwreck.The company reported its first quarter 2012 financial results last week, revealing it made a net profit after tax of $45.2 million — that’s about five times the amount ($8.6 million) the firm made in the first quarter of last year. It also exceeds the $39 million it made in the last quarter of 2011.Net operating profit soared from $6.9 million in the first three months of 2011 to $42.9 million in Q1 of this year. The group’s total investment return improved from 0.6 percent in 2011 to 1.1 percent so far this year.Lancashire’s net loss ratio for the first quarter of 2012 was 35.7 percent, compared to 67 percent for the same period of 2011.The firm incurred $34.1 million in claims costs from the Costa Concordia. This compares to the net losses of $116.5 million in the first quarter of 2011 related to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the Christchurch earthquake.Gross written premiums rose, year-on-year, from $171.9 million to $234 million but net premiums declined from $137.7 million to $132.1 million.Lancashire’s combined ratio for the first quarter however, was 74 percent — better than the 97.4 percent for the same period last year, but up from 73.1 percent at the end of 2011 and the 63.7 percent seen over the whole of 2011 (anything below 100 percent implies a company is making a profit through underwriting risk as opposed to making money from investments).In other words, things were marginally worse on the underwriting front in the first quarter of 2012, partly due to the claims related to the Costa Concordia disaster in January of this year.The company’s CEO complained that Lancashire and others are unable to charge more despite the Costa Concordia grounding costing the industry perhaps as much as $1 billion.“While the Costa Concordia loss affected our combined ratio, as it has many others in the industry, it has been frustrating to see industry-wide pricing in marine lines failing to show the improvements that might have been expected following such a loss,” said Richard Brindle, Lancashire’s CEO.Mr Brindle otherwise described Lancashire’s Q1 results as solid, and thanked the firm’s shareholders for approving plans to allot it to issue up to ten percent of issued share capital on a non pre-emptive basis.