Hiscox attributes 6% retail growth to ‘reinvigoration of our distribution’

Insurer Hiscox has recorded 6% growth in its insurance contract written premium (ICWP) for its retail division over the first six months of 2025 – an improvement that has been primarily driven by a “reinvigoration of our distribution across UK, Europe and the US”, according to Joanne Musselle, the company’s group chief underwriting officer.

Hiscox published its 2025 half-year financial results on 6 August 2025, revealing that the insurer’s retail arm – which includes Hiscox UK, Hiscox Europe and Hiscox USA – boosted ICWP from $1,304.3m (£988m) in 2024 to $1,386.6m (£1,050m) this year.

The division’s combined ratio worsened slightly year-on-year, moving from 87.9% to 88.6% – however this is still a profitable result. Its undiscounted combined ratio, which excludes the impact of discounting future claims liabilities, improved from 93.1% for H1 2024 to 92.7% for 2025.

For Hiscox UK specifically – which provides “commercial insurance and locally traded specialty insurance, as well as personal lines cover, including high value household, fine art and luxury motor” – ICWP increased from $427.4m (£323.8m) for HY 2024 to $463.4m (£351m) for the same period this year.

Speaking exclusively to Insurance Times, Musselle explained that “distribution has been key” to this growth in Hiscox’s retail business over the first six months of the year, with the insurer attempting to spend “a lot of time with brokers” in order to better understand their requirements and needs – such as speed of service, access to decision-makers and more tailored propositions.

Musselle said: “In our retail business, one of the drivers [of growth] is the reinvigoration of our distribution across UK, Europe and the US. We spend a lot of time working with our distribution partners and [it is] really pleasing that we’re adding new partners, we’re finding new distribution deals, we’re rolling out new schemes. Distribution has been key [to H1 growth].

“[Hiscox’s] retail portfolio is up 6% and, in retail, the momentum is building, which we’re really pleased with. If you look at the combined ratio for retail, we’ve also not just grown, but actually had a margin improvement, which is really, really pleasing for the group.”

Digital as a driver

Alongside distribution development, Musselle also identified “broadening out our digital capability” as a secondary driver of growth in the insurer’s retail arm – specifically, the work Hiscox has done around its eTrading proposition.

The specialty insurer launched its extranet back in January 2023. Following that, in April 2024, Hiscox rolled out its high net worth products on software house Acturis.

The latest development here, according to Musselle, is that “now we’ve got our commercial products on” Acturis too.

The insurer’s half-year report noted: “Technology is helping to deepen our market access. The launch of our UK high value household product on eTrade has proved highly successful, with over 250 brokers now able to access our auto underwriting capabilities.”

She added that Hiscox’s ongoing “big investment in digital capability” included investigating how the insurer might interact with its broker partners via application programming interfaces (APIs), to make “it easy for customers, brokers and partners to deal with us”.

Boosting brand

A third contributor to retail growth in the year to 30 June 2025 has been the continuation of Hiscox UK’s brand refresh, which Musselle explained kickstarted about 18 months ago.

She said the rebranding exercise is “getting some really great traction”.

The insurer’s report added: “Our award winning brand campaign continues to drive positive momentum, with spontaneous brand awareness having increased over 80% since the launch of the campaign.

“More importantly, return on investment metrics screen attractively. The campaign has continued to receive external recognition, with a further eight awards won at the 2025 Creative Circle Awards.”

This rebrand has now been rolled out to Hiscox USA too, alongside the launch of new campaign ‘There’s No Business Like Small Business’, Musselle continued.

Lastly, Musselle noted that a “refresh of our leadership in a couple of areas within our retail business” has also led to growth for this segment.

This included a raft of hires in the US, such as head of claims Alexandra Furth in March 2025, as well as chief underwriting officer Nick Sinkus and senior vice-president and head of digital partnerships Nick Mabunay from May 2025.

In the UK, Matt Perkin was named trading director for high net worth, art and collections in June 2025 – a newly created position.

“There’s lots of momentum in retail,” Musselle concluded.

• Insurance Times converted dollar amounts to pound sterling at a conversion rate of £1 = $1.32, as at August 2025.