The UK boasts Europe’s largest insurance market and the world’s third biggest, with insurers here managing more than £2 trillion worth of investments, according to the latest industry data. This is why it is not surprising that the country has become an appealing choice for investors looking to diversify their portfolios.
The largest insurance companies in the UK have a combined market capitalisation of slightly over $168 billion (£139.8 billion), accounting for about 6% of the global figure of $3.2 trillion (£2.7 trillion). While Britain’s share seems small, it ranks next only to those of industry powerhouses US and China.
This article reveals the country’s biggest insurers based on this metric. If you’re an investor looking at the insurance industry as a potential investment option, this article can serve as a useful guide. Read on and find out the largest insurance companies in the UK based on market cap.
Head office location: London, England
Market cap: $62.15 billion (£51.5 billion)
Business lines: Commercial re/insurance, insurance-linked securities
Aon Plc leads the list of the largest insurance companies in the UK, with a worldwide reach spanning more than 120 countries and territories, and a 60,000-strong global workforce. The publicly traded company specialises in commercial insurance and reinsurance products, and insurance-linked securities.
Aon has five business units, namely:
The insurance giant was founded in Chicago, USA in 1982. Its chief executive officer, Gregory C. Case, has been in charge of the firm since 2005.
Head office location: London, England
Market cap: $41.03 billion (£34 billion)
Business lines: Life insurance, investment, and consumer finance services
Prudential Plc is a life and health insurance and asset management specialist with headquarters in London and Hong Kong. The company operates more than 30 life insurance businesses across almost two dozen countries and boasts a network of over 530,000 agents, 27,000 bank branches, and 170 bank partners. Its CEO, Anil Wadhwani, assumed the role in February 2023, after being appointed in May 2022.
Prudential’s insurance portfolio consists of:
The firm’s long-term savings products, meanwhile, include:
Prudential is focused on strengthening its foothold in Asia and Africa’s emerging markets, where it has 19.3 million customers. Part of this endeavour is the establishment of Eastspring Investments, the firm’s asset management unit, which operates in 11 Asian markets and has distribution offices in Europe and North America.
Head office location: London, England
Market cap: $25.05 billion (£20.75 billion)
Business lines: Investment, risk advisory, and reinsurance
Formerly known as Willis Towers Watson, the company rebranded to WTW in 2022, ending almost 200 years of history for the names of its predecessor businesses. It also changed its ticker to WTW after trading under WLTW since 2016. In his announcement, CEO Carl Hess said these changes “reflect the clarity and actionable solutions we bring to today’s challenges.”
WTW’s insurance solutions are under its Risk unit, which offers the following services:
The company has two other business lines. These are:
Head office location: London, England
Market cap: $14.79 billion (£12.25 billion)
Business lines: Motor, home, life, and health insurance, and investment and retirement solutions
Among the largest insurance companies in the UK, Aviva offers insurance, investment, and retirement products and services to more than 33 million clients globally. It has offices across a dozen countries – including insurance hotbeds in the UK, China, and Canada – and employs more than 31,000 staff. Amanda Blanc has been serving as the insurance behemoth’s CEO since 2020.
Aviva operates five business divisions, namely:
Head office location: Cardiff, Wales
Market cap: $7.99 billion (£6.62 billion)
Business lines: Car, home, and travel insurance
Admiral Group is the UK’s largest car insurance provider, accounting for 14% of the country’s overall market share. The car insurance specialist underwrites policies through its several brands, including:
Clients love Admiral’s comprehensive car plan, which offers UK drivers the greatest protection, including cover for their windshields, stereo, and child car seats, as well as a replacement for vehicles less than a year old.
The insurer also recently launched the Admiral Virtual Assistant, also called AVA, which is an online tool designed to respond to common questions and concerns from customers. Customers can also use AVA to update their insurance policies, file a claim, and view their policy details.
Admiral offers home and travel insurance as well. Its 11,000-strong staff serves more than seven million customers globally. Apart from the UK, Admiral has offices in Canada, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Turkey, and the US. Its CEO, Milena Mondini de Focatiis, began her leadership tenure in 2021.
Head office location: London, England
Market cap: $7.52 billion (£6.23 billion)
Business lines: Life insurance and pension savings
Phoenix Group is the country’s largest long-term savings and retirement solutions provider, serving about 13 million clients across the UK and globally. It has £270 billion worth of assets under administration with a shareholder capital coverage ratio of 186%.
The company operates six brands offering pension savings and life insurance. These are:
Phoenix Group is led by Andy Biggs, the company’s group chief executive officer, who was appointed to the position in 2020.
Head office location: London, England
Market cap: $5.42 billion (£4.49 billion)
Business lines: Property and casualty, and life and health insurance, and reinsurance
Beazley is the specialist insurance and reinsurance arm of Beazley plc. Among the largest companies in the UK based on market cap, Beazley is a Lloyd’s of London insurer managing Syndicates 623, 2623, and 3623. Through the insurance marketplace’s extensive broker network and trading licences, Beazley is able to access a wide range of insurance and reinsurance businesses globally.
In the UK, Beazley offers a range of insurance products tailored to the varying needs of individuals and businesses. These include:
Adrian Cox is Beazley’s CEO, a role he has been holding since 2021. The company has more than 1,600 employees and caters to the following markets:
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Head office location: Bromley, England
Market cap: $2.77 billion (£2.29 billion)
Business lines: Motor, home, commercial and rescue, and other personal lines
Direct Line Group started as the country’s first telephone-only insurance provider – thus the name – and has since grown to become one of the largest insurance companies in the UK. It offers a range of policies through its several brands and subsidiaries, namely:
Direct Line Group’s former CEO Penny James stepped down from her post in January 2023, with group chief financial officer Jon Greenwood taking over the role as acting chief executive.
Head office location: London, England
Market cap: $1.31 billion (£1.09 billion)
Business lines: Personal and commercial insurance
RSA Insurance Group offers a wide range of personal, commercial, and specialty insurance products through a broad distribution network that spans more than 100 countries. It serves around nine million customers worldwide and is among the largest car insurance providers in the UK. RSA’s products are sold directly to customers and can also be accessed through its network of brokers and affinity partners.
The insurer’s key products include:
Ken Norgrove is CEO of RSA UK&I, a position he has held since January 2022.
The table below sums up the largest insurance companies in the UK by market cap.
Market capitalisation, also called market cap, is the total value of a publicly traded company’s outstanding common shares owned by stockholders. Market cap indicates how much a business is worth as determined by the stock market. The value is determined by multiplying the number of outstanding shares by the current market value of a single share. For this list, we pulled market cap data from this website.
A company’s market capitalisation plays a crucial role in determining its size, without having to search for its sales figures or total assets. Investors also use this metric to assess a company’s financial performance versus other firms of different sizes.
For the investing community, calculating a company’s market cap is important as it can indicate if a company is a safe or risky investment. But what is a good market cap? The answer lies in your investment goals. Companies with a large cap are often financially stable and carry less risk for investors. On the flipside, firms with smaller market cap are riskier to invest in but can offer huge rewards, especially if they experience significant growth.
For the insurance community, this is an important piece of information for people to understand. This metric can help you understand how well an insurance company is doing, if it can meet all of its obligations to those it ensures, and provide stable workplace for those that work there.
UK insurers account for a small portion of the world’s insurance giants. If you want to find out the largest insurance companies in the world, we have them ranked in this article.
Do you have experience working with the largest insurance companies in the UK? How was it? We’d love to hear how it went in the comment section below
