Allianz has issued a trading update on the opening quarter of 2020. Here are some highlights for you;
Allianz Commercial lines book grew by 7% in Q1, with a particularly strong performance in the Motor book. However flood related claims on the Motor Trade, Property and Packages accounts amounted to £43m, which was significantly above our provision for natural catastrophes.
Petplan continues to perform well, growing by 6% to help counterbalance ongoing claims inflation in the pet insurance market and the Engineering, Construction & Power insurance business has also achieved healthy growth.
Where businesses have purchased cover that enables them to claim for Business Interruption due to COVID-19, we’ve made over 200 interim and final settlement payments.
In broker markets Allianz say they’re responding to adjustments to exposures, change of use and policy conditions and payment restructure requests in a flexible manner.
LV= General Insurance
Trading in the first quarter was positive, delivering £512 million in GWP which included £102 million from L&G General Insurance. This is up 37% from the prior year. The business is in good health and we continue to maintain good momentum.
Our business was impacted by Storm Ciara, Dennis and Jorge, resulting in 12,000 claims at a cost of £26 million.
We recently announced that we’re making £30 million available to our direct car and motorbike insurance customers through our Green Heart Support to help those who are experiencing financial difficulties as a result of coronavirus. The money is being made available due to the savings that we expect to make as a result of reduced claims during the lockdown.
We’ve been helping all customers, across direct and broker, to reduce premiums by temporarily changing the cover they have. We’re also not charging administration or cancellation fees and waiving excesses on claims for the hardest hit financially, as well as offering free enhancements to cover for customers who are NHS and key workers.
We’ve been supporting our partner supplier network through increased payments to some suppliers, including bodyshops, breakdown drivers and home contractors.
Jon Dye, CEO, Allianz Holdings, commented:
“This is the first quarterly update of the enlarged Allianz Holdings Group, incorporating Allianz Insurance, LV= General Insurance and the general insurance business acquired from Legal & General. We opened a new chapter for our business and it would be no exaggeration to say that this coincided with the start of an unprecedented period for the market and the country, as we live through the largest insured event in history.
I am tremendously proud of the way in which our colleagues across the business have performed against this backdrop. We mobilised quickly and effectively to achieve a remote working model which has maintained service levels to our customers and brokers, and we continue to adapt to meet the demands of this evolving situation. As part of our commitment to our people, we announced that no one would be furloughed.
“The company has doubled in size to become the second largest general insurer in the UK and achieved substantial underlying growth in both Commercial and Personal lines. However, the quarter also saw significant claims for storms and floods amounting to £68m, and the slowdown in new business due to COVID-19 was already being felt at the end of Q1.”
Steve Treloar, CEO of LV= General Insurance, added: “At LV=, we pride ourselves on always trying to do the right thing for our people, customers, suppliers and the communities we operate in. Our people work tirelessly every day to ensure our customers are put at the heart of everything they do and never has that been more true than it has been in these last few weeks, as we’ve all faced the challenges presented to us by COVID-19. From a performance perspective, the strength of our brand and the strong foundations we have as a business have resulted in us being able to deliver a good result, achieving solid growth in what continues to be an extremely competitive market.”
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