ST. PAUL, Minnesota (Bloomberg) ? St. Paul Travelers Cos., the biggest commercial insurer in Louisiana and Mississippi, said third- quarter profit fell 52 percent after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita battered the US Gulf Coast.

Net income declined to $162 million, or 23 cents a share, from $340 million, or 50 cents, a year ago, the St. Paul, Minnesota-based company said in a statement yesterday. Profit would have been seven cents a share excluding gains on investments and the sale of its asset management unit. Michael Dion, an analyst at Sandler O?Neill & Partners LP in New York, estimated a per-share loss of five cents on that basis.

Claims from Katrina represented about $800 million of the company?s $1 billion in hurricane expenses, in line with its September forecast for the storm. Katrina?s unprecedented damage, estimated to cost the industry as much as $60 billion, will help reverse a trend of declining premiums, boosting insurers? future profits, analysts said. ?If you exclude the storms, results look pretty decent,? said Stuart Quint, who helps manage about $78 billion at Gartmore Global Investments in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, including 163,780 shares of St. Paul as of June.