CHICAGO (Bloomberg) ? CNA Financial Corp., the commercial insurance unit of Loews Corp., reported $3 million of profit in the third quarter as investment gains cushioned claims from Hurricane Katrina.

The net income compares with a net loss of $27 million in the year-earlier period, when there were four major hurricanes, the Chicago-based company said in a statement today. Common shareholders had a per-share loss of six cents because the company had $17 million in preferred stock dividends.

Claims from Katrina, which battered the US Gulf Coast in August, would have pushed CNA to a loss of $39 million, or 22 cents a share, had there not been $42 million in investment gains. Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst Jay Cohen had estimated a per- share loss of 41 cents on that basis.

Katrina was probably the most expensive US disaster in insurers' history, costing $40 billion to $60 billion, according to storm modeller Risk Management Solutions Inc.

Shares of CNA are up 29 percent in the past year, compared with a 21 percent increase in the KBW Insurance Index.