FY 2024 financials prove Covéa ‘made the right decision’ with strategy focuses – Georges de Macedo

Covéa Insurance chief executive Georges de Macedo is adamant that the insurer “made the right decision” when launching December 2023’s ‘Doing what really matters’ three-year strategy as the firm’s full-year financials for 2024 show swing back into profitability.

On 9 April 2025, Covéa Insurance published its full-year financial results for 2024, reporting a £32.9m profit compared to an £87.3m loss at the end of 2023. This movement from red to black was further highlighted in the company’s combined operating ratio (COR), which improved from a loss-making 116.9% in 2023 to 97.8% last year.

Speaking to Insurance Times, De Macedo explained that an important driver of Covéa Insurance’s profitability has been the organisation’s internal housekeeping – bringing underwriting solely in-house and clearly delineating what is “core” and “non-core” business.

For De Macedo, Covéa’s personal lines core products are private car, van, standard home, private clients and pets, while its commercial lines offering is centred around cover for its “SME friends”.

In terms of non-core business Covéa exited in 2023, De Macedo described this as being primarily “about MGAs and some schemes where we gave an underwriting decision to a third party”.

Looking at Covéa Insurance’s most recent Solvency and Financial Condition Report for the year ending 31 December 2024, published in line with its financial results announcement, the insurer reported gross written premium (GWP) of £614m across its core business lines – with £438m coming from its personal lines products and £176m from its commercial lines book.

This created an overarching profit of £21m across Covéa Insurance’s defined core products last year, equating to a COR of 96.5%.

In comparison, the insurer reported GWP of £28m across its non-core propositions in 2024, where there is still “overhang” following 2023’s exits. This created an underwriting loss of £6.7m across these products and a COR of 113.4% for 2024.

De Macedo said: “We made the decision to exit from non-core business in 2023. Now, going forward, it’s gone. This [related] to some specific deals that were set up in personal lines, which required a lot of investments, [brought] a lot of complexity and were not aligned with our intermediated model.

“In commercial lines, it was all about MGAs and some schemes where we [gave] an underwriting decision to a third party. This was totally removed [in 2023].

“We want to have control of our underwriting and the 2024 results give us the demonstration that we made the right decision because our core products are all generating profits and non-core products are still making losses. This is something that will disappear in 2025.”

Man with a plan

De Macedo told Insurance Times that he had a long list of projects he wanted to check off his to-do list in 2025 – including starting the journey to refresh the insurer’s information technology infrastructure to boost the productivity of its 1,000 staff, as well as launch insurer hosted pricing for its home products by the end of Q2, mirroring the work Covéa completed to support its motor book in 2023 and 2024.

Since Insurance Times last caught up with De Macedo in November 2024, the chief executive confirmed that the business had reviewed its underwriting rules, sought to “improve our pricing capabilities significantly”, reduced expenses – without further cutting headcount – continued investment in technology and optimised its “reinsurance programme and costs”.

The amalgamation of back office work has contributed to Covéa Insurance’s “significant improvement and positive results”, he added.

De Macedo continued: “I will not say that our profit is exceptional in absolute terms. But what is really fundamental is the change [between 2023 and 2024] and the magnitude of the losses.”

However, De Macedo emphasised that Covéa Insurance would still be maintaining its focus on profitability, with 2024’s turnaround signalling the start of what he hopes to achieve with the business.

He said: “The main thing is that we have the right strategy and 2024 gave us the confidence that we’ve made the right move. It’s not the time now to relax – it’s the time to continue in that direction and to address the future.

“I strongly believe that we can achieve much better in terms of profitability. 2024 was a year that was still impacted [by] non-core [business], with some losses. [The most recent financial results were] a good start, but obviously now with the confidence, the experience that we bring to this journey and also the needs that we have and the freedom that we have, we can do much better without changing our approach.

“We have a long-term ambition, we have a plan and we are following this plan. It is important that we stick to the plan and progress at the right pace.”