Hartford Financial Services (HIG -0.77%) reported Monday that it swung to a net loss in the fourth quarter partly due to payments it had to make in the wake of last autumn's Superstorm Sandy. The company's Q4 loss was $46 million ($0.13 per diluted share), against a profit of $118 million ($0.23) in the same quarter of 2011. Total revenues, however, were up sharply to $7.7 billion, a 37% year-over-year increase.
The company booked $350 million in net losses from the damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy, one of the most destructive storms in U.S. history. "Catastrophe losses in the fourth quarter of 2012 were almost entirely due to Storm Sandy," the company wrote in its press release.
For fiscal 2012, Hartford posted a net income of $350 million ($0.66 diluted EPS) on $26.4 billion in revenue. Those figures for 2011 were $712 million ($1.40) and $21.9 billion, respectively.
Looking forward, the company expects core earnings of $1.38 billion to $1.48 billion for 2013. That figure was just over $1.4 billion in 2012.
