Italy's biggest insurer, Generali, has reported rising nine-month profit despite a €1.5 billion hit from natural catastrophes, and said it is on track to exceed all the targets in its three-year plan. The results were published on Friday, 13 November 2026.

Net profit for the first nine months of the year rose 12% to €3.6 billion, beating analyst expectations of €3.49 billion. Adjusted net profit was up 12% to €3.7 billion.

Operating profit, the figure most closely watched by investors, rose 8.5% to €6.45 billion, broadly in line with a company-compiled analyst consensus of €6.48 billion. Gross written premiums increased 4.5% to €76.52 billion.

Disaster losses weigh on non-life business

The group's non-life business absorbed heavy losses from natural catastrophes and large man-made events. Those claims worsened its undiscounted combined ratio, a measure of underwriting profitability, by 0.9 percentage points to 95.1%, against a consensus forecast of 94.8%. A ratio below 100% still indicates an underwriting profit.

Generali said all of its businesses contributed to profit growth. Its life business, the group's largest, benefited from growing net inflows and strong profitability, while its asset and wealth management operations saw operating profit jump 23%.

Targets in sight

Chief Financial Officer Cristiano Borean said the results gave the group "great confidence to exceed all the targets" of its strategic plan, which runs to 2027.

Generali launched the three-year plan at the start of 2025, targeting annual earnings-per-share growth of between 8% and 10% and dividend growth of more than 10% over the period.

The insurer has also been caught up in the wider reshaping of Italian finance this year, as the country's biggest bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, pursues rival Banca Monte dei Paschi, which holds a stake in Generali through its subsidiary Mediobanca. Generali's latest results, however, show the underlying insurance business continuing to grow through that uncertainty.

Generali is Italy's largest insurer and one of the biggest in Europe, with operations spanning life and non-life insurance as well as asset management. The group's premiums of €76.52 billion in the first nine months show the scale of that book, even though the figure came in slightly below the €76.82 billion analysts had expected.

The asset and wealth management arm was a bright spot, with operating profit up 23%, while the life business continued to attract new money. That breadth matters when catastrophe claims spike: growth in life and asset management helped offset the pressure on non-life underwriting in the period.

For investors, the key question is whether Generali can sustain its momentum into the final quarter while catastrophe claims remain elevated. On the evidence of the first nine months, the group believes it can, pointing to growth across life, non-life and asset management alike.

Sources: Reuters and Morningstar / Dow Jones.