Global insurer AXA has reported that its gross revenues increased by 2% to €78.4 billion over the first nine months of 2022, as strong growth across the company’s commercial and personal lines business was offset by a reduction in natural catastrophe exposure for AXA XL Reinsurance.
Overall property and casualty (P&C) segment revenues increased 3% to €40.7 billion during the 9M period.
This growth was led by a 6% increase in revenues to €24.4 billion for commercial lines insurance, driven by higher volumes in Europe and France and favorable price trends, partly offset by lower exposure reflecting continued underwriting discipline.
Personal lines revenues were similarly up 4% to €13.3 billion, again driven by improving pricing trends.
But revenues for AXA XL Reinsurance decreased by 20% to €2.9 billion as a result of a strong reduction in nat cat exposure, partly offset by favorable pricing effects.
The P&C segment also expects to incur roughly €400 million of claims from Hurricane Ian, gross of tax and net of reinsurance, equating to a market share of around 0.7% based on a current estimated industry insured loss of around US $60 billion.
AXA’s management noted that this market share is well below the company’s historical levels, and reflects the underwriting actions already taken to cut nat cat exposure.
Elsewhere, total revenues were down by 6% to €23.2 billion in AXA’s Life & Savings business segment, while Health revenues increased 14% to €13.1 billion, and Asset Management revenues grew 2% to €1.2 billion.
“AXA has delivered another strong performance in the first nine months of 2022 in a challenging environment,” said Alban de Mailly Nesle, Chief Financial Officer of AXA. “Our revenue mix continued to be of high quality, focused on growing technical lines while reducing our exposure in Nat Cat Reinsurance and traditional G/A Savings.”
“In P&C Personal lines, the pricing environment is showing clear signs of improvement. Overall, we expect that the actions we have taken to counterbalance inflation impacts in P&C this year should keep our strong underlying technical profitability on track across the Group,” the CFO continued.
“Our robust balance sheet puts us in a strong position against the current macroeconomic backdrop, with the Solvency II ratio at 225% and a very high-quality asset mix benefiting from a prudent allocation over the years,” he concluded, adding: “We remain confident in our strategy.”
