’We’ve seen huge progress in personal lines – and this speaks volumes about the power of our combined business with Aviva and DLG,’ says chief executive
Aviva’s UK and Ireland general insurance business boosted its operating profit by 52% in 2025 following the insurer’s acquisition of Direct Line Group (DLG).
In a trading update published today (5 March 2026), Aviva said its UK and Ireland arm secured an operating profit of £1.08bn last year, up from 708m in 2024.
This came following growth in gross written premium (GWP), which rose 27% from £7.7bn to £9.79bn year-on-year.
Aviva also noted that UK personal lines premiums grew by 50%, supported by the acquisition of DLG, as well as growth in intermediated business.
When Aviva acquired DLG in mid-2025, it said that the deal “would expand Aviva’s presence in the attractive UK personal lines market, building on its existing strength and creating a more efficient platform from which to serve existing and new customers”.
Following the release of Aviva’s 2025 results, Jason Storah, UK and Ireland general insurance chief executive, said: ”We’ve seen huge progress in personal lines – and this speaks volumes about the power of our combined business with Aviva and DLG.
”I’m pleased to say that our integration is going really well. We’re delighted to welcome our new colleagues on board and it’s been fantastic to see how quickly the teams have come together.
“Across the business, we’re navigating tough market conditions and maintaining bottom line resilience - and that puts us in a really good position for the future.
”I also want to take a moment to thank our brilliant colleagues, our fantastic valued brokers and our amazing customers for their support. Your commitment and collaboration truly make the difference. Here’s to a strong year ahead.”
2026 outlook
Looking ahead to 2026, the insurer said it expected growth and earnings momentum to be supported by its diversified business model and the addition of DLG.
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It also felt that it was “well positioned to win over the long-term capturing growth opportunities across our businesses and transforming with artificial intelligence (AI)”.
Aviva said: “We have extensive data assets and a unique advantage through our single customer view.
“We are set to benefit from the investment we have made to modernise our IT estate, with the foundations in place to benefit from AI.
“We have already delivered significant claims indemnity benefits and pricing sophistication through AI models and are seeing early success with claims summarisation and medical underwriting tools.”
Aviva chief executive Amanda Blanc added: ”We have transformed Aviva over the last five years and whilst we have made significant progress, there is so much more to come. Aviva has many in-built advantages which set us up well for future success, including our unrivalled scale with almost 22 million UK customers, our diversified model and market-leading technology.
”We have clear strengths in artificial intelligence which are creating major opportunities to transform claims, underwriting and customer experience. We are in a very strong position to deliver long-term growth, especially in the capital-light markets of wealth and insurance, and unlock even more benefits for our customers and shareholders.”
His career began in 2019, when he joined a local north London newspaper after graduating from the University of Sheffield with a first-class honours degree in journalism.
He took up the position of deputy news editor at Insurance Times in March 2023, before being promoted to his current role in May 2024.View full Profile
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