QBE Insurance Group Ltd (QBEIF) Q2 2025 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning and thank you for joining us today. I'm here today with Inder Singh, our group CFO, and this morning we'll take you through what are another great set of results for QBE. We're well on track for a strong year and I think the business is on an exciting trajectory. Before we begin, I'll start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the many lands on which we meet today. For me, This is the Gadigal lands of the Eora Nation and recognize their continuing connection to land, waters, and culture. I pay my respects to the elders past and present, and I extend this respect to any First Nations people joining us today. Moving to slide four with a snapshot of our result. It's clear we've had a good start to the year, with strength across the board from growth to underwriting, investments to capital. Headline GWP growth picked up to 6%, which was driven by underlying X rate growth of 7%. Profitability is attractive across the majority of portfolios and we remain motivated to grow the business. Our first half combined ratio of 92.8% is essentially in line with our full year outlook and represents another marker of more predictable, resilient performance. To this end, catastrophe costs were comfortably below allowance in a period pegged as the worst first half for the industry in over a decade. We had favorable prior year releases, which is encouraging, following our efforts to de-risk and build resilience into the balance sheet. And finally, we've delivered steady performance in a backdrop which was quite complex, with escalating conflicts, tariff disruptions, plus an active period for large claims. As expected, premium rate increases moderated through the period. This was most noticeable in certain commercial property and Lloyds portfolios, while the remainder o...