INSURANCE losses of £7 million sterling have been incurred by the General Accident group (GA) on the IRA's terrorist bomb attacks in London's Docklands and in Manchester, the company disclosed yesterday in comment on its interim figures.

The group's losses are slightly lower than the £9 million losses incurred by Commercial Union through its insurance exposures on properties damaged by the IRA attacks.

Overall, GA's first half operating profits declined £61 million to £194 million, mainly due to heavy first quarter weather losses in the US and Britain.

In Ireland, there was a deterioration in interim results which were adversely affected by first quarter weather losses.

But the result beat market forecasts, which ranged from £165 million to £186 million. Analysts began moving to upgrade full year forecasts by around £10 million to £400 million plus.

"The actions we are continuing to take to strengthen our competitive position worldwide are producing positive results in all our major business units," said chief executive, Mr Bob Scott.

In particular, he noted GA had performed well in the highly competitive British market, swinging back into profitability on personal and commercial business after a first quarter loss.

Canada also produced an underwriting profit in the second quarter, the strength of the performance surprising analysts.

Shares in GA rose 14p to 678p, while its composite rivals also gained ground with the merged Royal & Sun Alliance rising 4p to 390p and Commercial Union up 9p at 624p.

"These are fairly good results," said analyst Mr Michael Lindsey at Lehman Brothers. "If you exclude the £56 million in weather losses then the company is not running too far behind where i4 was last year."