Insurance Australia Group Limited (IAG) Q2 2026 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Well good morning everyone and welcome to our first half financial results presentation. I'm joined here today by our Chief Financial Officer William McDonnell and members of the group leadership team of IIG. And we're holding this briefing in IIG Sydney offices on the lands of the Gadigal people. We acknowledge the traditional owners of country throughout Australia and we recognise their continuing connections to lands, waters and the communities. And I pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging. My key call-outs this half are the resilience of our business and our confidence for the future. The headline profit is a strong outcome and demonstrates our underwriting discipline and ability to absorb the seasonal weather impacts that we've experienced, of course, by putting our purpose into action. Our on-growth outcomes were good across the majority of our portfolios, particularly in retail, where the underlying growth across Australia and New Zealand is around 4%. We've maintained our focus on pricing discipline, and this is delivering results. Our strong, stable earnings funded the RACQ acquisition from organic capital generation, and we're in a position to announce an on-market share buyback today of up to $200 million. The outlook is strong. We're forecasting top line growth in high single digits and maintaining our FI26 reported insurance profit and margin guidance despite the severe weather that Australia has experienced. When it comes to supporting our customers, the experience measures in our Much Love brand are strong and our retention rates continue to remain really high. Over the half and continuing into this calendar year, we've seen hailstorms, bushfires, flooding across Australia, as well as terrible landslides in New Zealand, and I've spe...