Beazley lowers growth outlook and plans $500 million Bermuda spend

Beazley PLC on Tuesday announced $500 million investment plans as it reported mixed trading in the first nine months of 2025.

The London-based insurer upgraded combined ratio guidance but lowered its estimate for insurance written premium full-year growth.

In response, shares in Beazley slumped 9.8% to 776.16 pence each in London on Tuesday.

Insurance written premiums increased by 0.9% to $4.67 billion in the nine months to September from $4.63 billion the year prior and net insurance written premiums grew 3.7% to $3.93 billion from $3.79 billion.

Premium rates on renewal business decreased by 4% compared to being flat the year prior.

Chief Executive Adrian Cox said Beazley continues to prioritise ‘profitability over volume’.

This supported upgraded undiscounted combined ratio guidance to low 80s from from its previous view of ‘mid-80s’. A combined ratio below 100% indicates profit on underwriting, so the lower, the better.

But this means that ‘growth is running at the low end of our guidance’ and below the level ‘we delivered in the first half,’ Cox added.

Beazley now expects 2025 IWP growth to be ‘flat to low single digits,’ compared to ‘low-to-mid single digits’ before.

In addition, Beazley announced plans to deploy $500 million capital to build out the new Bermuda platform which supports growth from 2026 onward.

This will ‘support our expansion into the alternative risk transfer market,’ Cox explained.

‘This will allow us to drive growth whilst maintaining margin by using our existing expertise to take advantage of new and evolving opportunities,’ he added.

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