Allianz SE has kicked off 2026 with its strongest-ever start, posting first-quarter operating profit of €4.5 billion as the insurance giant's property-casualty and asset management arms powered results well ahead of management's own pace for the 2025-2027 strategic cycle.

The 6.6% year-on-year rise extends a run of records for Europe's largest insurer and puts chief executive Oliver Bäte's three-year plan firmly on the front foot, barely 15 months after it was unveiled.

Shareholders' core net income surged 48.4% to €3.8 billion, though much of that jump reflected one-off gains from selling down stakes in Allianz's Indian joint ventures. Stripped of those proceeds, underlying growth came in at a more modest 7%.

Core earnings per share leapt 50.7% to €9.96, with the underlying 9% increase sitting at the very top of the group's 7%-9% compound annual growth target.

Top-line momentum was less emphatic. Total business volume slipped to €53.0 billion from €54.0 billion a year earlier, though internal growth — which excludes currency moves and deal effects — held up at 3.5%.

The Q1 haul represents 26% of the midpoint of full-year guidance, which Bäte's team reaffirmed at €17.4 billion give or take €1 billion.

Annualised core return on equity reached 24.2%, or 18% on an underlying basis, while the Solvency II ratio firmed by two percentage points to 221%. A €2.5 billion buyback unveiled in February is under way, with €0.3 billion already retired.

Setting the bar against European peers

Allianz's print arrives in a reporting season that has been kind to Europe's re/insurance heavyweights. Munich Re flagged a 56.7% leap in first-quarter net profit to €1.83 billion, the world's biggest reinsurer told investors, as the absence of last year's Los Angeles wildfire bill flattered comparisons.

France's AXA, for its part, said gross written premiums grew 7% to €36.9 billion in the quarter, with its Solvency II ratio at 220% — a whisker below Allianz's 221%.

The numbers suggest Allianz is keeping pace with the continent's strongest balance sheets, even as its 3.5% internal growth trails some peers on the top line.

The bigger story may be how quickly Bäte's medium-term ambitions are coming into view. At Allianz's Capital Markets Day in December 2024, the group laid out targets for the 2025-2027 period including 7%-9% EPS growth annually, a core return on equity of at least 17%, and 2027 operating profit goals of €9.5 billion for property-casualty and around €6 billion for life and health.

Full-year 2025 already delivered €17.4 billion in operating profit, with property-casualty doing the heavy lifting — leaving the segment within touching distance of its 2027 marker two years early.

S&P, in commentary issued last year, said Allianz's diversified mix and capital firepower left it well placed to hit those goals.

Bäte tied the quarter's strength to what he called the group's "customer-centred strategy" and a deeper push into artificial intelligence to personalise services.

Chief financial officer Claire-Marie Coste-Lepoutre said the result extended the momentum of 2025, crediting the breadth of Allianz's portfolio. The Indian divestments, meanwhile, underline a sharper capital allocation stance as the insurance group enters the middle stretch of its strategic cycle.