The householders line of insurance is back in the red after three consecutive profitable quarters, data released today shows.

The line made an insurance service loss of $190 million in the March quarter to produce a net combined operating ratio of 106.5%, according to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s quarterly update.

Insurance service is a measure of underwriting results in the authority’s analyses.

Householders last suffered a loss in the year-earlier March quarter, recording a $194 million deficit before improving to three consecutive quarters of profit – $217 million in the December quarter, $416 million in September and $538 million in June.

The latest deficit comes as householders incurred claims blew out to $4.5 billion from $2.09 billion in the December quarter and $2.41 billion in the year-earlier period.

Gross written premium fell to $4 billion from $4.22 billion in the December quarter, and was up from $3.66 billion a year earlier.

The industry’s overall insurance service profit moderated to $1.32 billion from $2.28 billion in the December quarter. Net profit after tax fell to $1.11 billion from $1.81 billion.

Insurance revenue dropped to $19.3 billion from $19.5 billion in the December quarter, and insurance service expense increased to $17.67 billion from $14.24 billion.

By business line, short-tail property classes’ insurance service profit fell sharply to $271 million from $1 billion in the December period; long-tail classes rose to $479 million from $305 million; mortgage business dropped to $144 million from $180 million; and other direct classes eased to $150 million from $154 million.

The APRA update for the March quarter is based on data from 87 reporting entities.