(Alliance News) – Beazley PLC on Wednesday reported a fall in profit and lower written premiums for its first half, ahead of its over GBP8 billion takeover by Zurich Insurance Group AG.
The London-based insurer, which previously accepted Swiss peer Zurich’s acquisition approach, said pretax profit for the first six months of 2026 dropped 53% to USD237.7 million from USD502.5 million.
Insurance written premiums decreased by 4.3% to USD3.05 billion from USD3.19 billion, while net insurance written premiums decreased 6.2% to USD2.44 billion from USD2.60 billion.
The insurance service result fell 44% to USD274.8 million from USD493.7 million, and earnings per share fell 56% to 23.2 pence from 52.5p.
“As we expected, the first half of 2026 saw rapidly softening conditions in the specialty insurance market,” commented Chief Executive Officer Adrian Cox. “Against a backdrop of increasing global turbulence, in particular cyber risk exposures and increasing geopolitical events impacting our political violence and marine war books, we have continued to use our expertise to underwrite appropriately and provide valuable services to our clients.
“As a result, while our incurred attritional claims have been better than expected, the first half of 2026 has seen a return to an active large loss environment, compared to the more benign experience seen in recent years. In these conditions, our robust approach to disciplined underwriting sees us continue to focus on prudent risk selection and to de-risk in areas that have become unprofitable.”
However, Cox added: “I’m proud of the momentum we are achieving in projects that will deliver long-term idiosyncratic growth. Our investment in Bermuda is proceeding at pace, where we are building out our Cyber ILS capabilities, have exceeded our initial underwriting targets for Property Treaty, and will be adding capabilities for Alternative Risk Transfer and Mortgage indemnity in the second half of 2026.
“We are also continuing to accelerate the development of our Transition underwriting capabilities, which we added to in March with the acquisition of renewable energy specialist kWh Analytics.”
Back in early March, Beazley announced its acceptance of a GBP8.2 billion takeover approach from Zurich.
The agreed terms value each Beazley share at 1,335 pence each, including a 25p per share dividend.
Beazley declared no interim dividend for the first half, unchanged from the prior year.
Looking ahead, Cox continued: “Our strong track record of using our agility and specialist expertise to manage market cycles and a challenging risk landscape positions us well to navigate the soft market and deliver sustainable value over the long term.”
Beazley shares opened up 0.3% at 1,295.00p on Wednesday in London, and were flat at 1,291.00p each later in the morning.
By Emma Curzon, Alliance News reporter
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