Insurance provider Lancashire Holdings has increased its estimated losses from exposure to the Tohoku earthquake in Japan and the floods in Thailand.

The company reported that it made losses of between $24 million (£15.3 million) and $28 million (£17.8 million) in the fourth quarter of 2011 as a result of the floods in Thailand after reinsurance and reinstatement premiums, prompting shares in the company to fall nearly 3 per cent this morning.

In a statement, the firm said that it had no direct exposure to Thai flood losses emanating from the Japanese reinsurance treaty products, including the Japanese Interests Abroad placements (JIA).

Lancashire added that due to ongoing exposure to the natural disaster, its ultimate loss could vary from today’s estimate and confirmed that it was increasing its estimated exposure to the Tohoku earthquake by $42.2 million (£26.8 million) to a net loss of $117.3 million (£74.6 million). This is after a reinstatement premium.

The increase in reserves is mostly related to Lancashire’s exposure to one significant reinsurer and it has now reserved in full its remaining exposure to that client.

The company admitted that ‘significant uncertainty’ remained regarding the eventual ultimate industry loss in relation to this event.

Chief market strategist at City Index, Joshua Raymond, commented, ‘Obviously this is not excellent news for shareholders given the size of the increased loss owing to exposures. Then again, it will not come as too much of a surprise given how volatile estimates to losses of natural disasters tend to be, particularly with the scale of the Japanese earthquake disaster.

‘Shareholders will likely just want to draw a line under this and the greater amount of clarification will help to curb any lingering uncertainty,’ he added.

Shares in the company were trading down 2.77 per cent at 685,50p at 10.08am.