Insurance Times looks back at the most read stories from the third quarter of 2025, as motor market machinations and M&A dominated the headlines
As the year progressed into its second half, the most popular stories on Insurance Times followed one of two major themes – the motor insurance market and Aviva’s takeover of personal lines giant Direct Line Group (DLG).
The most popular story from Q3 involved a significant decline in Land Rover thefts, with QuestGates research showing that a new vehicle had taken the top spot on thieves’ target lists.
Jaguar Land Rover, which became infamous later on in the year as it suffered the ‘most economically damaging’ cyber attack in UK history, had previously had to step in to the insurance market to address inflated premiums for Range Rover owners that were being caused by high rates of vehicle theft.
The vehicle hitting the undesired top spot was the Toyota Hilux.
Another popular story from the quarter saw the vehicle manufacturer respond to allegations that it had failed to finalise a cyber insurance deal.
Reader interest in motor insurance market stories continued, with Q3’s second most popular story involving research that showed automatic drivers were paying nearly double for their motor insurance policies.
Research from price comparison site Quotezone, which analysed over 10,000 policies in September, showed that while the average manual premium stood at £696 in H1 2025, automatic premiums averaged £1,296.
The disparity in premiums peaked in April, when automatic drivers were paying a dramatic 91% more than their manual counterparts.
Mega merger
As Aviva’s deal to acquire DLG completed in July, a GlobalData Plc report noted that the combined group could potentially “almost double the joint second-largest players’ market share (14.4%)”.
Beatriz Benito, lead insurance analyst at GlobalData, added: “In particular, the greatest advancements will be in the motor insurance space, where Aviva could end up controlling roughly a fifth of the market (19.6%).
“It would also command a significant share of the total UK property insurance market (17.3%).”
This report was followed by the announcement that Owen Morris would step up to become chief executive for the newly combined UK personal lines business.
Hosted by comedian and actor Tom Allen, 34 Gold, 23 Silver and 22 Bronze awards were handed out across an amazing 34 categories recognising brilliance and innovation right across the breadth of UK general insurance.
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