European Insurance Study 2025

In 2024, Europe’s top 25 insurers increased their insurance revenue by 8.5%, thereby continuing their growth trajectory prevailing since 2021. Both the life and non-life segments contributed to this growth, each at around 8%. However, the share of the life business in total revenue continued to decline, as the non-life segment is growing more strongly.

Since 2022, the top 25 European insurers have increased their profitabilityby around 80%. This is primarily due to the rise in interest rates and the recovery of the capital markets, both of which are enabling higher investment returns. Moreover, a decrease in extraordinary claims expenses allowed underwriting profits to recover, which in turn resulted in higher total earnings. In some cases, one-off effects of individual companies also had a positive impact on earnings contributions.

After several years of conspicuously strong and stable and development, the solvency ratios of the top 25 European insurers recorded a significant decline of almost 11 percentage points between 2023 and 2024. However, the average solvency ratio is still above 200%.

The decline is mainly the result of strategic capital measures such as stock buybacks and the building up of dividend provisions. For some insurers, the recalculation of transitional measures pursuant to Solvency II required by the supervisory authorities led to a significant decline in their solvency ratio.