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French insurer AXA has today posted a better-than-expected 5% increase in half-year underlying earnings, driven by higher premiums and below-average damage claims for natural catastrophes in the company’s property and casualty (P&C) business.
Its half-year underlying profit reached €4.11 billion, above the €3.96 billion forecast in company-compiled consensus.
“The increase in pricing we are observing now is the result of inflation and the rise in reinsurance rates,” said Alban de Mailly Nesle, AXA’s chief financial officer, in a conference call with journalists.
AXA also said today it had agreed to buy Irish health insurer Laya from Corebridge Financial, a subsidiary of AIG, for €650m to expand its position on the European health market.
Europe’s second-biggest insurer after Germany’s Allianz reported a jump to 235% in its end of June Solvency II ratio, a key measure for its financial health, up 20 percentage points from the end of December and above the estimate of 222%.
AXA said its damage claims from French riots in late June and July amounted to around €125m and their impact was already included in the insurer’s half-year report.
90% of those damages were incurred by businesses and professionals rather than private households, Frédéric de Curtois, AXA’s deputy chief executive, said in a conference call.
The total cost of insurance claims following the urban unrest amounted to €650m, mainly affecting professional and local authority property, according to the French insurers association France Assureurs.
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