Hiscox UK grows ICWP by 4.5% in nine months to September 2024

Hiscox UK has revealed that its insurance contract written premium (ICWP) grew by 4.5% in the nine months to September 2024.

In a trading update today (7 November 2024), the insurer said its UK arm secured £502.4m in ICWP during the period, up from £482.5m the previous year.

This came as a result of growth in the commercial and art and private client (APC) businesses, with customer numbers up nearly 20% year-on-year.

Hiscox UK also deployed an artificial intelligence (AI) new business automation tool in APC lines, which has reduced the review time for priority submissions from 2.5 days to 2.5 hours.

Other divisions

Hiscox Retail’s ICWP, meanwhile, increased by $99m (£76.73m) year-on-year to $1.92bn (£1.49bn).

However, the insurer’s London market ICWP was $932.3m (£722m), down 9% from 2023.

Hiscox explained that the underlying growth momentum was tempered by its decision to not renew certain large binder deals and to stop writing space business.

“Space has materially reduced in size in the year to date as there were fewer risks coming to the market. We took a decision to reduce line size due to recent elevated loss activity,” the insurer added.

Group level

At group level, ICWP increased by $113.1m (£87.7m) to $3.87bn (£3bn) in the nine months to September 2024.

Hiscox also said that large natural catastrophe losses and overall claims were within expectations for the first nine months of the year, despite an active loss environment.

Aki Hussain, chief executive at Hiscox, said: “The group continues to deliver a solid performance, with our combined focus on building growth and earnings momentum.

“Our priorities of achieving high quality growth in all markets in our retail business and selectively deploying capital into attractive big-ticket lines are unchanged and we continue to make significant progress against the group’s strategy to deliver sustainable, less volatile returns while growing the business.”