AXA UK and Ireland growth stalls as personal lines hit cancels out commercial rise

Growth of AXA’s UK and Ireland business stalled in the first quarter of the year, with revenues flat at £848m, after non-motor personal lines took a tumble and commercial lines grew.

AXA UK and Ireland’s biggest sector, non-motor commercial lines, grew revenues by 4% to make up 47% of its book. According to Insurance Times calculations, this means AXA wrote £398.6m of non-motor commercial lines business in Q1.

Meanwhile the strongest growth was from the commercial motor book which grew revenues by 11% to an estimated £85m.

However personal non-motor revenues fell 6% to approximately £280m, while motor revenues were flat at around £119m.

In the UK and Ireland personal lines prices rose by 1.8% and commercial lines rates by 3.7%.

In February Laurent Matras replaced Karen Hogg as managing director of personal intermediary with a remit to make more of data analytics, real time pricing, and develop its non-standard proposition.

And last month it reorganised its underwriting and sales team to give its biggest brokers access to development underwriters which it said would speed up decision making.

Group performance

The group’s global results showed growth in commercial lines outstripping price increases, with revenues up 4% to €4.7bn compared to a price increase of 2.5%

Personal lines revenue grew 2% to €5.7bn on rates up 1.9%.

Direct revenues grew 8% to €0.6bn, in part thanks to improved renewals in the UK.

The interim management statement did not detail how profitable the business was. However AXA chairman and chief executive of global property and casualty Jean Laurent Granier said: “In the first quarter of 2014, we continued to deliver on our profitable growth strategy, enabling us to stay on track to deliver on our Ambition AXA targets.