Sabre Insurance plots buyback and ups payout as annual profit grows

Sabre Insurance Group PLC on Tuesday reported growth in annual profit, announced a buyback and a chunkier dividend.

The Dorking, Surrey-based motor insurance underwriter said pretax profit in 2025 improved 4.9% to £51.0 million from £48.6 million. This was despite gross written premiums decreasing 42% to £202.9 million from £236.4 million.

Sabre’s combined operating ratio improved to 82.3% from 84.2%. A figure below 100% denotes underwriting profit, so the lower the better.

‘I am very pleased that Sabre has continued its track record of delivering strong profits throughout the underwriting cycle, including the softer pricing environment seen in 2025. With market pricing having lagged claims spend trends for much of the year, we maintained our underwriting discipline, executing robust cycle management and allowed volumes to reduce whilst delivering a strong and improving margin through the period, leading to a 4.9% increase in profit before tax,’ Chief Executive Officer Geoff Carter said.

‘The benefits of this strong discipline position us well for the future. Having priced prudently for potential claims inflation throughout the period, we benefitted from positive experience as inflation moderated in the latter part of the year. This also allowed us to drive both premium and policy growth in Q4 and into 2026 - in the first two months of 2026, Motor Vehicle gross written premium is up over 5% year-on-year.’

Sabre said it is confident of hitting its £80 million pretax profit aim in 2030.

Sabre lifted its final dividend to 8.9 pence per share from 8.4p. Its total dividend was up 3.8% to 13.5p per share from 13.0p.

In addition, it announced a £5 million share buyback programme.

‘This is indicative of the board’s confidence in the group’s robust capital position and ability to continue to generate organic capital as we look to grow through to our Ambition 2030 target,’ CEO Carter said.

Shares in the firm shot up 7.0% to 138.09p each in London on Tuesday morning.

Copyright 2026 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.