London, April 6 (Reuters): The Lloyd’s of London insurance market slid to a small loss in 2005 as a result of large hurricane claims, it said on Thursday, but its financial position remained strong and it expects 2006 to be a good year.

Lloyd’s, the world’s largest and oldest insurance market, said it made a pretax loss of ?103 million, its first loss in four years, after being hit by the worst year on record for natural disasters.

The market made a profit of ?1.37 billion in 2004.

The insurance industry saw its costliest year ever for claims in 2005, with catastrophe claims of $83 billion (?47 billion), of which $65 billion came from hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma which buffeted the US and the Caribbean. Lloyd’s had net claims of ?3.31 billion from the string of major hurricanes but said it remained in sound financial shape.

“We’ve actually come out of 2005 with our central assets and our solvency ratio having increased,” said Luke Savage, Lloyd’s acting chief executive and finance director.

Although Lloyd’s claims from the 2005 hurricanes were well above its ?1.98 billion hit from the World Trade Centre attacks in 2001, the market’s overall annual loss last year was tiny compared with its ?3.11 billion loss in 2001.