Insurance Times ranks UK general insurers on financial performance
The results are in, the numbers have been crunched and Allianz has triumphed in Insurance Times’ first annual results ranking.
Allianz’s consistently strong performance, with COR below 100% in each of the past five years, helped it to come out on top. RSA in second place and Admiral in third were also boosted by their solid historical results.
The top-ranking insurers table compares the financial performance of the UK’s leading insurers using four different COR measures, balancing short-term performance with a longer-term view (see methodology, below).
In joint fourth place were Aviva, AXA, and Zurich, followed by Ageas in seventh position, and LV= and RBSI in joint eighth. Ageas, LV= and RBSI were all noted for their exceptional turn-around performances during 2011.
The nine insurers featured represent the UK’s largest and most influential insurers for which financial results are publicly available.
Click here to read the full report.
Table: Insurers ranked by improvement to COR 2010-11
| Combined ratio (%) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 2010 | Change | |
| RBSI | 100 | 121 | 21 |
| Ageas | 99.9 | 109.5 | 9.6 |
| LV= | 97.7 | 104.2 | 6.5 |
| RSA | 98.2 | 102.2 | 4 |
| AXA (inc Ireland) | 98.4 | 102.1 | 3.7 |
| Zurich | 97 | 99.7 | 2.7 |
| Allianz | 95.7 | 95.9 | 0.2 |
| Aviva | 96 | 96 | 0 |
| Admiral | 91.3 | 83.5 | -7.8 |
Methodology
Insurance Times opted to use combined ratio to rank insurers’ financial performance because it provides the best available consistent measure of underwriting performance, accepting that the companies listed have varying books of business and operating models. The nine insurers featured represent the UK’s largest and most influential insurers for which financial results are publicly
available. All reported gross written premium of more than £1bn in 2011. The ranking method used was to score the insurers using four different COR measures, awarding points 9 to 1 for each and then combining these to create an overall ranking. The four COR measures were chosen to balance a shortterm performance rating with a longer-term view. They are: 2011 COR, COR improvement 2010-11 (see table above), average five-year COR and COR five-year volatility.
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