Aviva (AV.L) - Company Research

Last Updated: 12 September 2026

Aviva plc is the United Kingdom's largest insurer and, since completing the £3.7bn acquisition of Direct Line Insurance Group on 1 July 2025, by some distance its largest personal lines underwriter. The group runs four earnings engines: general insurance underwriting in the UK, Ireland and Canada; life protection and health; a fast-growing Wealth and Retirement platform; and Aviva Investors. Management is midway through a deliberate shift towards capital-light earnings, hit its 2026 group targets a year early, and reset the bar in November 2025 to an 11% operating EPS compound growth rate and a return on equity above 20% by 2028. The tension in the story is that the reported IFRS numbers and the operating numbers are moving in opposite directions, and the solvency ratio has fallen 30 percentage points in a year. This report sets out what the filings say, without opinions on whether the shares are cheap.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Ticker / exchange	AV. (AV.L), London Stock Exchange; FTSE 100 constituent. ADR: AVVIY
Sector	Diversified insurance — general insurance, life and protection, wealth and asset management
Headquarters	80 Fenchurch Street, London EC3M 4AE, United Kingdom. Registered in England and Wales, number 2468686
Founded	Heritage traced to 1696 and the Hand in Hand Fire Office; the group describes itself as more than 325 years old
CEO / Leadership	Dame Amanda Blanc, Group Chief Executive Officer since July 2020, re-elected at the 6 May 2026 AGM with 99.36% support. Group CFO Charlotte Jones. Chair George Culmer. Group CIO Chris Cochrane, appointed 24 February 2026
Employees	39,359 at 31 December 2025 (2024: 29,091), the increase driven by the Direct Line acquisition
Revenue (FY2025)	Insurance revenue £25,437m, up 22.6% on FY2024's £20,747m. Adding investment return of £32,932m gives total revenue of £58,369m (see Section 5 for the IFRS 17 basis)
Group adjusted operating profit (FY2025)	£2,203m, up 25%
Profit after tax (FY2025)	£1,054m total, of which £924m attributable to equity holders of Aviva plc
Share price	707.20p at the close on 11 September 2026
Market cap	~£21.15bn
Shares in issue	3,001,450,683 following completion of the £350m buyback on 8 July 2026; no treasury shares
Customers	25.3 million across the UK, Ireland and Canada at 30 June 2026, of which 21.8 million in the UK
Solvency II shareholder cover ratio	176% at 30 June 2026 (FY2025: 180%), with a surplus of £6.8bn
Dividend	FY2025 total 39.3p per share; 2026 interim 14.0p declared, payable 15 October 2026
Fiscal year end	31 December

Sources: Aviva Annual Report and Accounts 2025; half year 2026 results announcement, 14 August 2026; Result of AGM RNS, 6 May 2026; London South East share price data as at 11 September 2026.

2. Bull and Bear Case

Bull Case

• Operating earnings are compounding and the targets were hit early: FY2025 group adjusted operating profit was £2,203m, up 25%, with operating EPS of 56.0p, up 17%. H1 2026 added £1,326m, up 24%, with operating EPS of 31.8p. Aviva met its 2026 group targets a year early and reset to an 11% operating EPS compound growth rate through 2028.
• Return on equity is already through the 2028 target: IFRS return on equity was 20.3% at the half year against a target of above 20% by 2028, and 17.5% at FY2025, achieved on a much larger equity base after Direct Line.
• The capital-light mix shift is measurable, not rhetorical: 68% of FY2025 operating profit came from capital-light businesses against 53% in 2022, heading for above 75% by 2028. Wealth assets under management reached £261bn at the half year, up 25%, with net flows up 32% to £7.6bn and Wealth operating profit of £175m in FY2025 against a £280m ambition for 2027.
• Direct Line is running ahead of the original plan: the cost synergy ambition was raised from at least £125m to £225m, with £100m already at run rate by mid-2026 and about £130m guided by the year end. Capital synergies of more than £0.5bn are worth over 10 percentage points of solvency. Group general insurance premiums rose 29% to £8,093m in the half while the undiscounted combined operating ratio improved to 93.3%.
• Cash and the distribution underpin the shares: cash remittances rose 47% to £1,498m in the first half against a cumulative target of more than £7bn for 2026 to 2028; the dividend has risen for six consecutive years to a 39.3p FY2025 total plus a 14.0p interim, a yield of roughly 5.7%; and the £350m buyback completed in July at an average 617p, below the current price.

Bear Case

• The reported IFRS numbers are going the wrong way: H1 2026 IFRS profit after tax fell 49% to £418m and basic EPS fell 44% to 12.2p while operating profit rose 24%, driven by negative investment variances and £213m of integration and restructuring costs, up 53%. FY2025 basic EPS of 26.9p against operating EPS of 56.0p is a 2.1x gap.
• Solvency has fallen 30 points in a year and the recovery depends on a regulator: the shareholder cover ratio was 176% at 30 June 2026 against 206% a year earlier and 180% at the year end, touching 171% at the first quarter. Debt leverage rose to 30.8%. The guided high-180s year-end exit requires PRA approval of Direct Line's inclusion in Aviva's internal model to release more than £350m of capital synergies worth over 7 points.
• Reported combined ratios are flattered by weather and reserve releases: Canadian weather in the first half ran 0.7 points below the long-term average against 3.2 points adverse a year earlier, so the 93.0% Canada combined ratio carries effectively no catastrophe load, and the UK and Ireland 93.4% includes 4.1 points of favourable prior-year development. Meanwhile C$439m of Ontario and Quebec storm losses, roughly C$360m of Niagara flooding and a British Columbia wildfire evacuation of more than 20,000 people all landed in the second half, outside those numbers.
• The annuity engine is stalling into a more crowded market: bulk purchase annuity volumes fell 44% to £1.1bn in the first half, down 52% in the first quarter, Retirement new business value halved to £47m on increased competition, and the new business matching adjustment compressed from 144 to 132 basis points. Retirement was the only major Insurance, Wealth and Retirement line to shrink in FY2025, at £711m, down 5%.
• Motor exposure doubled at an awkward point in the cycle: UK personal lines premiums grew 59% in the first quarter via Direct Line just as the ABI reported a record £3.2bn of quarterly motor claims, up 7% year on year with average payouts of £4,900, while the Confused.com and WTW index shows average comprehensive premiums at £719, down 5% year on year. UK commercial gross written premiums are already down 4% to £1,927m, with management expecting the softer rating environment to persist.

3. Revenue Segments

Aviva's reportable segments under Note 3 of the 2025 accounts are UK and Ireland General Insurance, Canada General Insurance, Insurance, Wealth and Retirement, Aviva Investors, International investments, and Other Group activities. Because the group is an insurer, operating profit contribution is the more meaningful split; insurance revenue by segment is shown alongside it.

Segment	% of revenue	What it is
UK & Ireland General Insurance	43.6% of insurance revenue (£11,095m); 48.9% of FY2025 business-unit operating profit (£1,077m)	Motor, home and commercial underwriting across the UK and Ireland, now including the acquired Direct Line, Churchill and Green Flag brands. Gross written premiums £9,787m, up 27%, at a 94.1% combined operating ratio.
Insurance, Wealth & Retirement	38.9% of insurance revenue (£9,885m); 48.9% of business-unit operating profit (£1,078m)	UK life. Protection and Health operating profit £204m (+53%), Wealth £175m (+36%), Retirement including annuities and equity release £711m (−5%), Heritage £173m (−27%), Ireland £22m.
Canada General Insurance	17.2% of insurance revenue (£4,372m); 18.5% of business-unit operating profit (£408m)	Personal and commercial lines in Canada, where Aviva is one of only two truly national players. Gross written premiums £4,358m.
Aviva Investors	Fee-based, not insurance revenue (£123m of fee and commission income); 2.1% of business-unit operating profit (£47m)	The group asset manager, running money for Aviva's own balance sheet, the Wealth platform and third parties. Roughly 65% of Workplace net flows are directed into Aviva Investors funds.
International investments	0.4% of insurance revenue (£104m); 2.7% of business-unit operating profit (£60m)	The India and China life joint ventures. Aviva agreed on 9 July 2026 to buy the remaining 26% of its Indian life venture, taking it to 100%.
Other Group activities	Negative (−£19m of insurance revenue); −21.2% of the operating profit bridge (−£467m)	Corporate centre costs of £185m plus group debt costs and other interest of £282m, deducted from business-unit profit to reach the £2,203m group total.

Total insurance revenue was £25,437m in FY2025 against £20,747m in FY2024, with fee and commission income of a further £1,467m. Direct Line contributed £3,071m of insurance revenue and £174m of group operating profit from just six months of ownership.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. There are four distinct engines. General insurance underwriting earns a margin on premiums, measured by the combined operating ratio; group gross written premiums were £14,145m in FY2025 and the undiscounted combined ratio was 93.3% at the 2026 half year. Life and protection earns through premiums and the gradual release of the contractual service margin, which stood at £7,700m at 30 June 2026. Fee income of £1,467m comes from Wealth platform and Workplace assets plus Aviva Investors management fees. Finally, investment return is earned on both policyholder and shareholder assets, principally the annuity book.

The capital-light pivot. This is the central strategic idea. Capital-light businesses, defined as general insurance plus Wealth plus Protection and Health plus Aviva Investors, generated 68% of FY2025 group adjusted operating profit against a 2022 baseline of 53%, with a stated target of more than 75% by 2028. The economic argument is that fee and underwriting earnings consume far less regulatory capital than annuity writing, so the same profit supports a larger distribution.

Scale and distribution. Aviva served 25.3 million customers across the UK, Ireland and Canada at the half year, 21.8 million of them in the UK, having added more than 250,000 in twelve months. 7.2 million hold more than one product and roughly 46% of new policies are sold to existing customers, which is the cross-sell engine that justified the Direct Line purchase. Distribution runs through direct channels, brokers, price comparison websites, workplace and corporate pensions, the IFA platform, partnerships such as Nationwide home, and Lloyd's through the rebranded Aviva Syndicates. Total group assets under management were £479bn at 30 June 2026, with Wealth alone at £261bn. The group paid £31.9bn of claims and benefits in 2025.

What actually protects the returns. For an insurer the moat is a combination of underwriting data, distribution breadth and regulatory capital efficiency rather than a network effect. Aviva's advantage is scale in a consolidating UK market, a single customer view across the largest UK book, and a partial internal model approved by the PRA. The corresponding vulnerability is that none of this prevents a soft pricing cycle, and the Solvency II ratio responds directly to interest rates. You can track the share price against the sector on our Live Charts page.

5. Financial Health

A basis warning is essential before reading the table. Aviva adopted IFRS 17 and IFRS 9 from 1 January 2023 with a transition date of 1 January 2022. Only FY2022 was restated; FY2021 was never restated. Under IFRS 17 Aviva's income statement contains no total revenue or total income subtotal at all. The revenue column below is therefore constructed as insurance revenue plus investment return, both taken directly from the consolidated income statement, and the FY2021 figure is the old IFRS 4 income subtotal for continuing operations. The 2021 to 2023 top line is a broken series and should not be read as a trend.

Fiscal Year	Total revenue (£m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2021	33,184†	n/m	7.7p	32.5p	22.05p	£7,344m
FY2022	(20,780)‡	n/m	(34.7)p	35.7p	31.00p	£6,755m
FY2023	40,877	n/m	37.7p	40.3p	33.40p	£6,374m
FY2024	40,629	−0.6%	23.6p	48.0p	35.70p	£5,612m
FY2025	58,369	+43.7%	26.9p	56.0p	39.30p	£5,588m

† FY2021 is the IFRS 4 income subtotal for continuing operations and is not comparable with the years that follow. ‡ FY2022 is the IFRS 17 restated basis, and is negative because net investment expense of £(37,669)m during the 2022 bond sell-off exceeded insurance revenue of £16,889m; it was largely offset below the line by a £22,342m release in insurance liabilities. Do not use it in any ratio. The Adjusted EPS column is Aviva's disclosed operating EPS; the FY2021 figure of 32.5p is the continuing-operations measure, against 43.8p including discontinued operations. FY2025 basic EPS of 26.9p is depressed by a one-off £203m of special dividends paid on the cancellation of the Aviva plc and General Accident preference shares. The Long-term debt column is total external borrowings at the year end, being core structural borrowings plus operational borrowings; Aviva presents these as a single balance sheet line, with subordinated debt inside core structural borrowings and Restricted Tier 1 notes classified in equity rather than borrowings. Lease liabilities of £450m at FY2025 are reported separately. Insurance revenue itself, the cleanest volume measure, ran £16,889m, £18,497m, £20,747m and £25,437m across FY2022 to FY2025.

Measure	FY2021	FY2022	FY2023	FY2024	FY2025
Group adjusted operating profit (£m)	2,300	1,350	1,467	1,767	2,203
IFRS profit after tax (£m)	2,036	(1,139)	1,106	705	1,054
Gross written premiums, General Insurance (£m)	8,807	9,749	10,888	12,204	14,145
Solvency II shareholder cover ratio	244%	212%	207%	203%	180%
Cash remittances (£m)	n/d	n/d	n/d	1,992	2,077

Cash flow and balance sheet, FY2025. Net cash from operating activities was negative £(2,563)m against positive £8,445m in FY2024. For an insurer this line is dominated by policyholder investment flows and is not a proxy for cash generation; Aviva's own measures are cash remittances of £2,077m and Solvency II operating capital generation of £2,452m. Purchases of property and equipment were £93m and purchases of intangibles £98m, giving combined capital expenditure of £191m. Aviva publishes no single combined depreciation and amortisation line; the components are £78m of depreciation of property and equipment, £160m of amortisation of acquired value of in-force business and intangibles, and £55m of amortisation of AVIF on non-participating investment contracts, giving a derived total of £293m. Total assets were £395,304m, equity attributable to shareholders £9,694m, cash and cash equivalents £18,289m and total borrowings £5,588m. IFRS shareholders' equity per share was 317p and Solvency II net asset value per share 363p, falling to 352p at the 2026 half year.

Quarter / Half	Insurance revenue (£m)	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
H1 2026 (6m to 30 Jun 2026)	13,475	31.8p	12.2p
H2 2025 (6m to 31 Dec 2025)§	14,446	27.0p§	5.2p§
H1 2025 (6m to 30 Jun 2025)	10,991	29.0p	21.7p
Full year 2025 (year to 31 Dec 2025)	25,437	56.0p	26.9p

§ Aviva reports half-yearly with quarterly trading updates, and does not publish a standalone second-half statement; the H2 2025 line is derived by subtracting the reported first half from the reported full year. The earnings per share derivation is approximate because 378 million shares were issued on 1 July 2025 to fund Direct Line, materially changing the weighted average share count mid-year. This table is stated on an insurance revenue basis; the annual table above adds investment return, which Aviva does not split on the same basis at the half year. Other H1 2026 headlines were operating profit £1,326m, IFRS profit after tax £418m, IFRS return on equity 20.3%, cash remittances £1,498m, contractual service margin £7,700m and shareholders' equity £8,910m.

6. Valuation Metrics

Raw metrics, September 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Share price	707.20p (close, 11 September 2026)
Market cap	~£21.15bn (3,001,450,683 shares at 707.20p)
Trailing P/E (GAAP)	~26.3x (707.20p divided by FY2025 basic EPS of 26.9p). On Aviva's disclosed FY2025 operating EPS of 56.0p the same price is 12.6x, and the gap is the single most important thing to understand about this share; the 26.9p is also depressed by the one-off £203m preference share special dividend.
P/E (forward)	~11.1x, as published by Stockopedia on consensus forecasts implying roughly 30% EPS growth. ChartsView does not publish analyst ratings or targets; this is an estimate-derived multiple only.
P/S (TTM)	~0.83x (market cap £21.15bn divided by FY2025 insurance revenue of £25,437m). On the broader total revenue basis used in Section 5, £58,369m, it is ~0.36x.
Enterprise value	~£8.4bn on the mechanical formula (market cap £21.15bn plus total borrowings £5,588m minus cash and cash equivalents £18,289m per the FY2025 balance sheet). The result falls below market cap because most of that cash is policyholder money held against insurance liabilities, so enterprise value is not a meaningful measure for an insurer and should not be used in a multiple.
EV/EBITDA (TTM)	n/m — not meaningful for an insurer. Interest and investment return are operating items rather than financing items, and the enterprise value above is distorted by policyholder cash. For reference, the components would be operating profit £2,203m plus derived depreciation and amortisation of £293m. Use the Price/book row and the operating P/E instead.
Price/book	~2.13x published by both Morningstar and Stockopedia; ~2.38x derived on the 30 June 2026 IFRS shareholders' equity of £8,910m. On Solvency II net asset value per share of 352p the multiple is ~2.01x. Price to tangible book is ~5.98x on Stockopedia's published figure, and Aviva itself publishes no tangible net asset value measure.
P/FCF	n/m — FY2025 net cash from operating activities was negative £(2,563)m against £191m of capital expenditure, so the standard formula produces a negative free cash flow. For an insurer this line is dominated by policyholder investment flows. Against Aviva's own cash measure, remittances of £2,077m in FY2025, the market capitalisation is ~10.2x, and against the more than £7bn cumulative remittance target for 2026 to 2028 it is ~3.0x.
52-week high	740.20p, set 19 August 2026
52-week low	590.60p, set 30 March 2026
Short interest (% of float)	0.69% of issued share capital at 26 June 2026, the FCA aggregate net short position. Aviva has no significant strategic blockholder, so the free float figure is effectively the same. Recent readings ranged from 0.98% to 1.49% over July and early August 2026.
Days to cover	~2.8 days (approximately 20.7m shares short against a three-month average daily volume of roughly 7.4m shares). Calculated, not published.
Dividend yield	~5.68% on the FY2025 final of 26.2p plus the 2026 interim of 14.0p. The shares went ex the interim on 3 September 2026.

A note on data quality: the UK short-selling disclosure regime changed on 13 July 2026. Individual position holders are no longer named, the notification threshold fell to 0.2%, and the FCA now publishes only an anonymised aggregate net short position per issuer on a T+2 basis. Several retail data providers are serving stale share counts and market capitalisations for this line, and at least one large provider's trailing P/E is calculated on a different earnings base again.

7. What Are They Building

The Direct Line integration. This is the dominant project. The acquisition completed on 1 July 2025 for accounting consideration of £4,033m, generating £1,836m of goodwill and £1,069m of recognised intangibles. The cost synergy target was upgraded on 13 November 2025 from at least £125m to £225m of annual run-rate savings by 2028, against about £350m of costs to achieve. £100m of run-rate savings had been delivered by the 2026 half year with about £130m guided by the year end. Capital synergies of more than £0.5bn, worth over 10 points of solvency, are partly realised, with more than £350m remaining and dependent on PRA approval to bring Direct Line onto Aviva's internal model. All Direct Line employees have transferred, £4.9bn of assets have moved to Aviva Investors, and on 3 September 2026 Direct Line home insurance launched on price comparison websites for the first time in its history.

Wealth and Retirement. Wealth is the designated growth engine, with net flows up 32% to £7.6bn and assets under management up 25% to £261bn at the half year, boosted by initial Mercer Master Trust transfers with further scheme flows expected by the end of 2026. Management describes the £280m Wealth operating profit ambition for 2027 as firmly on track from £175m in FY2025. A dedicated "In Focus: Wealth" investor session is scheduled for 16 October 2026. In Retirement, the group is explicitly trading volume for margin, writing bulk purchase annuity business only above a low-teens internal rate of return hurdle; 2026 deals disclosed so far include Essentra at £104m, Iveco at £100m, Aston Martin Lagonda at £180m and Elementis at £300m.

Artificial intelligence. Aviva frames AI as a second-horizon opportunity built on 25 million customers, proprietary claims data and a single customer view. Concrete deployments include halving medical underwriting review time in Protection, agentic AI automating quality assurance in Wealth, a voice-enabled AI claims agent under construction, and an AI virtual assistant for customer support due later in 2026. On 24 March 2026 Aviva became the first UK insurer to launch an insurance app on ChatGPT.

Global Corporate and Specialty. The Lloyd's build-out has accelerated: Probitas 1492 was rebranded Aviva Syndicates on 18 June 2026, an onshore US commercial lines operation was announced on 25 March 2026, Aviva Private Clients launched at Lloyd's in February, a renewable energy consortium with AXIS followed in July, Aviva Premier for larger mid-market commercial clients launched on 1 September 2026 and an MGA hybrid fronting proposition on 7 September 2026. Health insurance in-force premiums rose 5% to £1.1bn, though sales fell to £51m from £76m and full-year Health operating profit guidance was cut to about £90m.

8. Competitive Landscape

Aviva competes on three fronts that rarely overlap: UK and Canadian general insurance against Admiral, RSA, Axa and the Canadian nationals; UK life, wealth and bulk annuities against Legal & General, Phoenix, Just Group and Rothesay; and, at group level, for capital against the far larger continental European composites.

Peer	Market cap (September 2026)	Key 2025/2026 metric
Prudential (PRU.L)	£24.22bn (11 September 2026)	H1 2026 adjusted operating profit US$1,812m, up 9% on a constant currency basis, with new business profit of US$1,384m, up 8%
Legal & General (LGEN.L)	£15.65bn (11 September 2026)	H1 2026 core operating profit £918m, up 7%; IFRS profit before tax £1,997m including a US disposal gain; Solvency II coverage 201%
Admiral Group (ADM.L)	£11.69bn (9 September 2026)	H1 2026 profit before tax £429.2m, down 18% from £521.0m, at a group combined ratio of 78.5%
Allianz SE (ALV.DE)	€170.91bn (11 September 2026)	Six months to June 2026 operating profit €9,390m, up 8.6% and a record; core net income €6,385m, up 15.5%; Solvency II ratio 225%
AXA SA (CS.PA)	€90.31bn (11 September 2026)	H1 2026 underlying earnings €4.5bn, up 4% and up 9% excluding AXA IM; underlying EPS €2.19, up 8%; Solvency II ratio 218%
Zurich Insurance (ZURN.SW)	CHF 88.52bn (12 September 2026)	H1 2026 business operating profit US$4.8bn, up 13% and an all-time high; property and casualty BOP US$2.8bn, up 16%, at a 92.7% combined ratio

On the numbers above, Aviva's 176% Solvency II shareholder cover sits below the European composites' 218% to 225% ratios, though the measures are not directly comparable across regimes. Its 93.3% group undiscounted combined ratio is competitive with Zurich's 92.7% but nowhere near Admiral's 78.5%, which reflects Admiral's very different, motor-concentrated and reinsurance-heavy model.

9. Leadership and Insider Activity

Dame Amanda Blanc has been Group Chief Executive since July 2020 and was re-elected at the 6 May 2026 AGM with 99.36% support. Charlotte Jones is Group Chief Financial Officer and George Culmer is Chair. All thirteen incumbent directors were re-elected at the 2026 AGM with no board departures or appointments put to the meeting; the only executive change in the period was the appointment of Chris Cochrane as Group Chief Information Officer on 24 February 2026.

Aviva is a prolific discloser, with roughly forty Director and PDMR shareholding notifications across 2025 and 2026 to date. The pattern is consistent across both years: every material disposal is a mechanical tax-cover sale on the annual March vesting, and the only discretionary transactions are purchases.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Price	Value	Plan Type
Amanda Blanc (Group CEO)	20 Mar 2026	Sell (tax cover)	560,817	£6.099	£3,420,423	Tax-cover sale on vesting of 1,193,228 shares under LTIP 2023 and deferred bonus awards
Charlotte Jones (Group CFO)	20 Mar 2026	Sell (tax cover)	222,480	£6.099	£1,356,906	Tax-cover sale on vesting of 473,363 shares
Douglas Brown (CEO, Insurance Wealth & Retirement)	20 Mar 2026	Sell (tax cover)	418,572	£6.099	£2,552,871	Tax-cover sale on vesting of 418,571 shares
Jason Storah (CEO, UK & Ireland General Insurance)	20 Mar 2026	Sell (tax cover)	190,655	£6.099	£1,162,805	Tax-cover sale on vesting of 301,066 shares
Mark Versey (CEO, Aviva Investors)	20 Mar 2026	Sell (tax cover)	74,740	£6.099	£455,839	Tax-cover sale on vesting of 125,195 shares
Amanda Blanc (Group CEO)	15 May 2026	Buy	6,858	£6.21	£42,588	Open market
Kenneth Blanc (person closely associated)	15 May 2026	Buy	10,258	£6.21	£63,702	Open market
Amanda Blanc (Group CEO)	14 May 2026	Grant	1,204,610	£0.00	Nil-cost, reference price £6.29	Annual Bonus Plan deferral 195,866 plus LTIP 1,008,744
Charlotte Jones (Group CFO)	14 May 2026	Grant	488,632	£0.00	Nil-cost, reference price £6.29	Annual Bonus Plan deferral 89,427 plus LTIP 399,205
Cheryl Agius (NED)	09 Oct 2025	Buy	7,284	£6.83	£49,750	Open market
Amanda Blanc (Group CEO)	04 Sep 2025	Buy	6,594	£6.23	£41,081	Open market
Ian Clark (NED)	10 Jul 2025	Buy	8,100	£6.17	£49,977	Open market
Jason Storah (CEO, UK & Ireland GI)	13 Apr 2026	Sell	285	£6.25	£1,781	The only discretionary disposal recorded in 2026
Multiple executives and NEDs	18 Aug 2026	Buy	362 (combined)	£7.29	£2,639	Routine monthly all-employee share plan and NED share purchase scheme acquisitions

Blanc bought Aviva stock on the open market in both 2025 and 2026, alongside NED purchases by Ian Clark and Cheryl Agius. The March 2026 sales, which look large in isolation, are entirely tax-cover disposals on a vesting event, with the net shares in Blanc's and Jones's cases subject to a further two-year holding period. No September 2026 notification had been filed as at 12 September; the monthly share plan cycle falls around the middle of the month.

10. Key Risks

• UK motor pricing cycle and claims inflation: average comprehensive premiums were £719 in the second quarter of 2026, down 5% year on year, while the ABI reported a record £3.2bn of motor claims paid in the quarter, up 7%, with average payouts up to £4,900. Aviva's UK book has roughly doubled through Direct Line into exactly this backdrop, and UK commercial gross written premiums are already down 4% to £1,927m with management expecting the soft rating environment to persist.
• Direct Line integration execution: only £100m of the £225m run-rate cost synergy ambition had been delivered by mid-2026, with about £130m guided by the year end. Integration and restructuring costs of £213m in the half were up 53% year on year and are excluded from operating profit. The 11 March 2026 PRA Final Notice on historical Direct Line solvency miscalculation, fully provided for in the acquisition balance sheet, is evidence of acquired control weaknesses.
• Regulatory approval risk on the capital synergies: more than £350m of capital synergies worth over 7 points of the cover ratio depend on PRA approval to bring Direct Line into Aviva's internal model by the end of 2026. Standard formula treatment currently yields only about £250m of diversification benefit. The guided high-180s year-end solvency exit rests on this single approval.
• Weather and catastrophe exposure, particularly in Canada: two consecutive benign halves have flattered reported combined ratios, and heavy second-half Canadian activity sits outside the half-year numbers. C$439m of insured damage from the Ontario and Quebec storms of 30 June to 3 July, roughly C$360m from Niagara flooding in late July and early August, and a British Columbia wildfire evacuation of more than 20,000 people all fall into the second half. The decade-average Canadian insured catastrophe loss now exceeds C$3.7bn a year against C$1.4bn in the prior decade.
• Bulk annuity competition and longevity: volumes fell 44% to £1.1bn in the first half against a £4.6bn full year in 2025, Retirement new business value halved to £47m, and the new business matching adjustment compressed from 144 to 132 basis points. Eleven insurers are now active in the UK market and three UK competitors were recapitalised by international capital during 2025. A 2% fall in annuity mortality would cost £0.1bn of own funds and 2 points of cover.
• Interest rate sensitivity of the solvency ratio: the shareholder cover ratio fell from 206% to 176% in twelve months and debt leverage rose to 30.8%. Disclosed half-year sensitivities show a 100 basis point fall in rates costing £(0.4)bn and 9 points of cover, a 10% rise in expenses costing 7 points, and a 5% deterioration in gross loss ratios costing 5 points.
• Credit spread and illiquid asset concentration: of £126.1bn of fixed maturity securities at the half year, 3.7% sit below investment grade and 7.5% are unrated, while £30.2bn of loans are entirely unrated. UK non-securitised commercial mortgages of £5,876m, of which £5,494m backs annuity liabilities, saw average loan-to-value rise from 37.5% to 42.3% in six months. A 20% fall in commercial property values would cost £(0.4)bn and 5 points of cover, and a downgrade on 20% of the annuity portfolio £(0.2)bn and 3 points.
• Solvency UK reform and the matching adjustment: the matching adjustment is the economics of the annuity book and remains a live regulatory dependency, with the risk margin, the fundamental spread and regulatory reporting all in scope for further change. Aviva's own audit committee notes that the industry-wide matching adjustment attestation is made to a weaker assurance standard than applies to IFRS statements.
• Sector conduct overhang: the FCA motor finance redress scheme, covering roughly 12.1 million agreements with an average payout of about £830, was partially suspended pending Upper Tribunal hearings listed for December 2026 or February 2027. Aviva is not a motor finance lender and discloses no exposure, but it owns a premium finance entity and the FCA's separate premium finance market study, closed favourably in February 2026 with no price cap, remains subject to ongoing supervisory attention.

11. Recent Developments

• 03 Feb 2026 — FCA closes its premium finance market study. The final report of MS24/2 imposed no price cap and no ban on with-interest models, noting premium finance rates had fallen 4.1 percentage points since 2022, saving consumers roughly £157m a year.
• 05 Mar 2026 — FY2025 results and a £350m buyback. Operating profit £2,203m (+25%), operating EPS 56.0p (+17%), IFRS profit after tax £1,054m (+50%), basic EPS 26.9p, return on equity 17.5%, cash remittances £2,077m, Solvency II cover 180% with a £7.1bn surplus, and a final dividend of 26.2p taking the FY2025 total to 39.3p. Aviva confirmed it had achieved its 2026 group targets a year early, and launched a £350m buyback the same morning.
• 11 Mar 2026 — Response to a PRA Final Notice on Direct Line. The notice concerned historical miscalculation of Direct Line's solvency position, disclosed by Direct Line in August 2024 before the acquisition. Aviva said the penalty was discounted by the maximum amount for exemplary cooperation and was fully provided for in the acquisition balance sheet.
• 24 Mar 2026 — Aviva launches an insurance app on ChatGPT, the first UK insurer on that surface.
• 25 Mar 2026 — US commercial lines expansion announced. Aviva set out plans to open an onshore US commercial lines operation, alongside a £104m buy-in with the Essentra Pension Plan.
• 06 May 2026 — 2026 AGM passes all 29 resolutions. The Directors' Remuneration Report passed with 96.89% and the Remuneration Policy with 94.52%. The largest protest was on climate-related financial disclosures, with 91.64% in favour and 222.5 million votes withheld. All thirteen incumbent directors were re-elected.
• 14 May 2026 — Q1 2026 trading update. General insurance premiums £3.4bn (+19%), UK personal lines +59% to £1,529m, UK commercial −8%, group undiscounted combined ratio 94.1%, Wealth net flows £3.3bn (+49%), bulk annuity volumes £619m (−52%), and Solvency II shareholder cover down to 171%. Guidance was reaffirmed.
• 26 May 2026 — New €575m Tier 2 issue. Aviva priced €575m of 4.750% Tier 2 notes callable in May 2037, completing a refinancing that also included a May tender offer and subsequent redemptions through June.
• 17 Jun 2026 — FCA approval to deliver targeted support, placing Aviva among the first firms authorised under the new advice-guidance regime. The following day Probitas 1492 was rebranded Aviva Syndicates.
• 08 Jul 2026 — £350m buyback completed. 56,721,704 shares were repurchased at an average of 617.05p and cancelled, finishing ahead of the 6 August long-stop and leaving 3,001,450,683 shares in issue.
• 09 Jul 2026 — Agreement to take Aviva India to 100%. Aviva agreed with Dabur Invest Corp to buy the remaining 26% of its Indian life joint venture following India's foreign direct investment liberalisation, with financial impacts described as not material and completion still pending.
• 03 Aug 2026 — £300m Elementis buy-in completed, the largest disclosed Aviva bulk annuity transaction of the period, following £180m with the Aston Martin Lagonda scheme on 29 July.
• 14 Aug 2026 — H1 2026 results. Operating profit £1,326m (+24%), operating EPS 31.8p (+10%), IFRS profit after tax £418m (−49%), basic EPS 12.2p (−44%), return on equity 20.3%, cash remittances £1,498m (+47%), an interim dividend of 14.0p (+7%), Solvency II cover 176% and general insurance premiums £8,093m (+29%) at a 93.3% undiscounted combined ratio. No new buyback was announced.
• 03 Sep 2026 — Direct Line home insurance launches on price comparison websites for the first time, a direct consequence of the acquisition and a test of the distribution thesis behind it. The shares went ex the 14.0p interim dividend the same day.
• 07 Sep 2026 — MGA hybrid fronting proposition launched for the global specialty market through Global Corporate and Specialty, six days after the launch of Aviva Premier for larger commercial customers.

12. Key Dates to Watch

• 15 Oct 2026 — 2026 interim dividend of 14.0p per share paid (ex-dividend 3 September, record date 4 September 2026); ADR payment 21 October 2026
• 16 Oct 2026 — "In Focus: Wealth" investor deep-dive, the first detailed disclosure on progress towards the £280m Wealth operating profit ambition
• 13 Nov 2026 — Q3 2026 trading update, marked provisional on the company calendar
• Expected Dec 2026 — PRA decision on including Direct Line in Aviva's internal model, on which more than £350m of capital synergies and over 7 points of solvency cover depend
• Expected Dec 2026 — Upper Tribunal hearings on the FCA motor finance redress challenges, listed for 14 to 18 December 2026 or 16 to 26 February 2027
• 26 Feb 2027 — FY2026 full year results, marked provisional on the company calendar; the 2026 final dividend would be declared here
• Expected Mar 2027 — 2026 final dividend ex-dividend date, on the pattern of 26 March in 2026; nothing has been published
• Expected May 2027 — 2027 Annual General Meeting and 2026 final dividend payment; the 2026 meeting was held on 6 May and the prior final was paid on 14 May

Aviva's own footnote states that any date marked provisional may be subject to change, and that all dividend dates are provisional until declared by the board. For the macro releases that move insurance rate expectations, see the ChartsView Economic Calendar, and discuss this research with other members in the ChartsView Forum.

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