Zurich Insurance Group AG reported a 13% gain in profit for the first half of 2026 and said it doesn’t expect to have any material exposure to the impact of extreme heat and ongoing wildfires.
Group operating profit rose to $4.77 billion, the insurer said on Thursday. Analysts had estimated $4.73 billion. Net income increased 14% to $3.49 billion from the same period a year earlier.
“We don’t have any material exposure at the moment to the wildfires,” Chief Executive Mario Greco said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “We know prevention, we know mitigation of wildfires, this is something that unfortunately we are an expert of,” he said.
Zurich Insurance’s key property and casualty unit rose by 12% on a like-for-like basis from the same period a year earlier, with $2.81 billion in operating profit, in line with analyst estimates, and a 92.7% combined ratio, a key profitability measure for insurers.
Operating profit at the Farmers unit came in below estimates at $1.18 billion.
The company said it was ahead of all its targets in the current strategic cycle and was raising its guidance for its life unit, which is now expected to grow by at least 10% in 2026.
Zurich also said it saw accelerating demand across all businesses and that AI demand continues to boost the need for data center infrastructure not just in the U.S. but also across the globe. Global specialty insurance premiums increased 8% to $5.5 billion in the period.
Shares Down
Citi analyst James Shuck said he expected fading growth in North American commercial premiums and a weaker underlying combined operating ratio to weigh on the share price today.
The firm’s shares were down more than 3% in early trading in Zurich.
Zurich is in the process of acquiring specialty insurer Beazley Plc. as part of an $11 billion deal that won the approval of the U.K. firm’s board in March. The deal is set to create a global leader in specialty insurance with about $15 billion of gross written premiums and leverage Beazley’s presence in the Lloyd’s of London market.