By James McNair, Cliff Peale and James Pilcher
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Midland Co. reported a 14.8 percent rise in third-quarter earnings Thursday and said losses stemming from Hurricane Isabel damage claims were lower than expected.

Midland, an insurance company that specializes in covering such things as manufactured homes, boats and recreational vehicles, said it posted revenue of $184.2 million for the three months ended Sept. 30, compared with $160.5 million in the same period last year. It said it had net income of $4.3 million, compared with a loss of $2.6 million a year ago.

The Amelia-based company had expected Hurricane Isabel to cost it between $10 million and $15 million on a pretax basis. It said Thursday that the pretax loss came in at about $9 million.

In other reports:

• Multi-Color Corp.: Sales jumped 31 percent to a record $31.6 million during the second quarter ended Sept. 30, the company said Thursday. The label maker earned $1.7 million, or 38 cents a share, up 4 percent compared to the same period a year ago.

Most of the sales increase came from the January 2003 acquisition of Dec Tech, Multi-Color said. But because of "below standard operating performance" at a plant in Las Vegas, operating income increased only 3 percent, it said.

• Great American Financial Resources Inc.: The unit of American Financial Group Inc. earned $19.9 million, or 46 cents a share, during the third quarter ended Sept. 30.

During the same period a year ago, the company earned $2 million, or 5 cents a share. Excluding one-time gains and the effect of an accounting change, Great American earned $19.5 million, compared with $15.9 million in the 2002 quarter. Total revenue was $237.9 million, down 2.1 percent from revenue of $243.1 million during the same quarter last year.

• Roto-Rooter Inc.: Downtown-based plumbing services company Roto-Rooter Inc. reported net income of $3.2 million for the third quarter, down from $7.1 million from the same period last year.

The results came to 32 cents a share, compared with 72 cents during last year's third quarter, although that figure included 60 cents a share coming from the sale of discounted operations.

The company reported that revenue dropped less than 1 percent, from $75.3 million to $75.1 million.

E-mail jmcnair@enquirer.com, jpilcher@enquirer.com or cpeale@enquirer.com.