Allianz UK operating profit increases by 18.2% despite slight dip in business volumes

Allianz UK increased its operating profit by 18.2% in HY 2026 despite a slight dip in business volume.

In a trading update published today (7 August 2026), the insurer said that its UK arm secured a profit of £265m in the first six months of the year, up from £224m during the same period in 2025.

The COR in Allianz UK also improved by two percentage points to 90.9% from 92.9% in HY 2025.

This came despite UK business volumes dropping slightly from £2.28bn in HY 2025 to £2.27bn in HY 2026.

This was also the case across Allianz Commercial, Allianz Partners and Allianz Trade, with business volumes dropping from £1.36bn to £1.27bn year-on-year.

Allianz UK chief executive Colm Holmes explained that the decrease in total business volume “masks” that policy numbers have grown by 2% overall, despite premium being “broadly flat” and “impacted by the soft market, particularly in commercial”.

Speaking to Insurance Times, Holmes said: “While our new business growth in commercial has been incredibly strong, what we haven’t done is price to retain business that we don’t feel can be profitable into the medium and longer term.

“That’s very much a discipline we apply to our business and we’re clear with brokers that we won’t write business where we believe we can’t maintain that rate on that business over the medium term.”

‘Significant investment’

Holmes added that the operating profit increase is a product of “significant investment”, including £200m of annual change investment for the past four years and a further £80m in artificial intelligence (AI) within the last year.

“We’ve invested a lot in our digital capability, so within that number, for example, we’ve very dramatically improved our digital trading volumes,” he continued.

“For example, we’ve seen 58% growth in our fleet digital business and that’s certainly the investment we’ve made over the last three years in digital capability. We’ve simplified our business model [by restructuring] our regional offices to make sure that brokers can communicate with us easier and that’s bearing fruit.

“That heavy investment in service means that our retention has grown quite significantly, but against that, submissions in the market are down, there’s less business being placed. What we have done [is improve] our quote rates, so we’re quoting more than we did in the past and our conversion rate has improved, so the underlying performance of the business is incredibly strong.”

Personal lines growth

Meanwhile, Holmes noted that its personal lines policy count has grown 3% despite “competitive factors” in the market.

Holmes said he points this improvement to a “multitude of efforts across distribution, targeted customer brands and businesses and investment in call centre ease of doing business”.

He continued: “It’s very much targeted growth that we have in that space.

“It’s been helped so much by beginning to see rate coming back into the motor space, [which is] less so the case in the home space. We’re well positioned for growth in the future as the market starts to rate, at least in line with inflation, as opposed to what it has been doing for the last few years which is rating well below inflation.”