The insurer’s price hikes helped it to bring in operating profits that were better than expected by mid-year.
The Zurich Insurance company recently reported that it has achieved a half-year operating profit that was better than expected, bolstered by its life business and the price increases it implemented to mitigate increased claims from severe storms.
Zurich is the fifth-largest insurer in Europe and posted a $3.72 business operating profit.
Though there wasn’t much of a difference over last year’s first half, analysts were polled by the company and their average forecast was for $3.62 billion. Moreover, the insurance company’s life business operating profit grew by 11 percent.
According to Mario Greco, the insurer’s CEO, while speaking to the media, their current direction indicates that it now plans to exceed the financial targets that had been set by the group for 2025. Those targets were first announced in November 2025.
This news has arrived at a time in which insurers worldwide have been facing losses from unexpected disasters such as severe storms, wildfires, COVID-19, and the war in Ukraine. Insurers have responded by hiking prices or implementing new restrictions on the coverage they offer in order to protect the profits they bring in.
The insurance company released a statement that said their prices were hiked by around 6 percent.
Zurich’s statement said that their average price hike was around 6 percent during the first half of this year.
“The things that we’ve done to reduce exposure to natural catastrophes in the U.S. I think have had a positive impact in the first six months,” said George Quinn, Zurich’s head of finance. Quinn went on to say that a year’s second half is usually the more challenging than the first, partly because of the impact of the Atlantic Hurricane Season in the United States.
Even as climate change continues to pummel insurers, the Zurich Insurance company left the United Nations-convened Net-Zero Insurance Alliance earlier in 2023. Others that made similar moves include Allianz from Germany and AXA from France. That said, Allianz also recently announced that they beat their profit expectations through their own pricing strategy.
