London pensions firm eyes more deals after HSBC and Lloyds takeovers Insurance Pension consolidator Chesnara has said it is eyeing more deals after it swung back into profit following its takeover of HSBC Life UK. The London-listed firm recorded a £61m pre-tax profit in the first half of 2026, bouncing back from a £5m loss in the same period last year. Revenue soared to £255.9m, up from [...]
Standard Life partners with Goldman Sachs and CVC to fuel pension risk transfer business Insurance Standard Life has struck a deal with a group of global finance giants including CVC and Goldman Sachs in a bid to accelerate its push into the booming pension risk transfer market. The FTSE 100 group has joined forces with a CVC-led consortium, which also includes insurer Prudential, to commit as much as £2bn over [...]
Amanda Blanc has worked her magic at Aviva Insurance For twenty years Aviva found itself struggling to cement its position in the insurance market. The arrival of Amanda Blanc changed the group’s fortune and share price. Maisie Grice looks into how she executed Aviva’s revival and what could come next. Few FTSE 100 constituents have executed a turnaround quite like Aviva’s. The insurance giant [...]
Aviva profits jump following Direct Line acquisition August 14, 2026 FTSE 100 insurance giant Aviva reported its operating profit for the first half of this year to be up 24 per cent, driven by the group’s “strong progress” following its acquisition of Direct Line in 2025. The London-listed insurer, which offers home, car, and life insurance in the UK and serves approximately 25 million customers, [...]
Admiral profit slides as boss eyes push into EV insurance August 6, 2026 Admiral suffered a drop in profit as the insurance giant was weighed down by lower earned premiums in its UK car business. The group’s profit before tax fell by 18 per cent to £429.2m in the first half of the year, while turnover remained flat at £3.11bn. Milena Mondini, group chief executive, told City AM [...]
FTSE 100 Beazley profit plunges as war roils insurance market August 5, 2026 FTSE 100 insurer Beazley said war and rising global risks were hitting the insurance market as it revealed that its profit more than halved in the first half of 2026. The insurer reported a pre-tax profit of $237.7m (£176.6m) for the first half of 2026, a 53 per cent fall from the $502.5m reported in [...]
Darts star Beau Greaves gets eyes insured by Specsavers for £1m July 31, 2026 Women’s darts sensation Beau Greaves has had her eyes insured for £1m by opticians Specsavers. The stunt came after Greaves, a 22-year-old from Doncaster who wears glasses, won a third Women’s World Matchplay at the weekend when she beat Fallon Sherrock 6-5 in the final at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool. Like Littler won the [...]
Lloyd’s of London allows staff to work from home as heatwave hits the capital July 28, 2026 Lloyd’s of London is allowing its staff to stay away from the historic City building as yet another heatwave threatens to hit London. The home of the world’s leading specialist insurance and reinsurance marketplace has told staff they are able to use their judgement and work from home this week with temperatures in the Square [...]
Former Lloyd’s chief John Neal breached rules with undisclosed relationship July 22, 2026 Former Lloyd’s of London chief executive John Neal fell “significantly below” expected standards in his workplace relationship with a colleague, an independent legal review by Freshfields has found. Neal had run the historic London insurance marketplace for over six years when he stepped down last year. He was in line to become president of general [...]
Financial services activity ‘drops rapidly’ as investors alarmed by Burnham July 6, 2026 Business activity across the financial services sector – one of the chief drivers of economic growth across the UK – has dropped sharply as confidence slumps, according to a new survey. Financial services firms, including banks and insurers, said business volumes had nosedived in the second quarter of the year. While the net reading for [...]