Aviva Group

Aviva is a leading insurance, wealth and retirement business in the UK, with franchises in Ireland and Canada.

Aviva is the largest life insurer in the UK, holding a 20% share of the UK market. It serves over 11m customers with its wealth, retirement and insurance offerings. Within the General Insurance sector, the company serves around 6m individual and commercial customers. In Canada, Aviva is one of the top two P&C insurers, with a ~8% market share.

Aviva has stated that their innovation activity underpins the following key themes: Mobility; Prevention; Wellbeing; Wealth; Open Finance; New services; Data & AI; ESG and Sustainability. Aviva has also worked with Founders Factory to invest in UK startups, and Anthemis Female Innovators Lab fund.

Aviva Group also runs Aviva Investors, an asset manager that combines its insurance, investment capabilities and sustainability expertise. As of the end of 2022, Aviva Investors managers £223bn in assets.

In 2017, the company launched Aviva Quantum with a team of 650 data scientists led by Owen Morris. The team is focused on customer analytics, risk analytics, claims analytics, machine pricing, AI and fraud analytics.

In December 2018, Aviva Launched AvivaPlus in the UK, a new subscription-style insurance product which offers flexible insurance coverage, monthly payments with no APR, no charges for cancellation or changes, and a renewal price guarantee for home and car insurance.

In 2019 Aviva partnered with Highline Beta to launch a new road safety and smart city accelerator in Toronto, Canada. The programme, which is split into two stages, involves designing a POC and bringing it to market.

In November 2019 Aviva revealed it was cutting its personal lines products from 400 down to 40 by 2022, and would instead target growth in SME, corporate and specialty.

Aviva announced it had renewed its home and life insurance partnership with Santander in March 2020, agreeing to continue the deal until at least 2025, with plans to deliver new products and services in the near future.

Also in March, Aviva announced its exit from Indonesia, selling its entire shareholding in its joint venture, PT Astra Aviva Life, to its partner PT Astra International Tbk.

In September 2020, it was revealed that Aviva Singapore was to merge with SingLife, after the latter acquired 75% of Aviva Singapore. That same month, Aviva France was put on sale. The move came after new Group CEO Amanda Blanc announced a refocus on Aviva's activities in the UK, Ireland and Canada.

In November 2020, Aviva announced plans to sell its 80% shareholding in its Italian life JV Aviva Vita to its partner UBI Banca for €400m.

Aviva announced in February 2020 it was to sell its French life, general insurance, and asset management business, plus the 75% shareholding in Aviva France, to Aéma Groupe for €3.2bn in cash, significantly bolstering their capital and liquidity. It will use the new capital and cash to support its debt reduction plans, plus for investment for long-term growth and shareholders returns. The sale was completed in September 2021.

In May 2021 Aviva partnered with insurtech Ripe to offer a bicycle product, Cycleplan, that can be tailored to specific cycling needs, including cover for accessories, multiple bikes, and loss of earnings insurance, in case a customer is injured whilst on their bike.

That same month, Aviva completed its exit from Turkey.

In June 2021 Aviva and Darwin Innovation Group announced a 5-year strategic partnership, which kicks off with an autonomous vehicle trial. Darwin is currently trialling Navya's autonomous shuttle, which is controlled by 5G and satellite connectivity, and the insurer plans to collaborate in order to develop a comprehensive insurance model for this type of vehicle.

In October 2021, Aviva announced a 10m investment fund and a five-year extension its its innovation partnership with Founders Factory, enabling it to continue supporting UK startups.

Also in October 2021 Aviva deepened its partnership with Lucida Group, and completed the sale of its Italian General Insurance business. A month later, it also completed the sale of Aviva Poland.

In December 2021 Aviva announced an investment into the Clean Growth Fund, as part of its commitment to invest £50m into VC funds which are focused on tech supporting sustainable development. The insurer stated the investments will “help build our knowledge of this space, and enable us to continue meeting out customers’ changing needs”. Aviva has already revealed it plans to become a Net Zero carbon emissions company by 2040.

Also in December 2021, the company completed its sale of Aviva Vietnam and its Italian Life Insurance businesses.

In March 2022 Aviva and Zego announced a partnership to provide fleet insurance to trades and haulage businesses.

In April 2022 Tractable partnered with Aviva to help the insurer to improve the accuracy and efficiency of UK motor claims. Tractable offers a self-guided app that leverages AI to automatically assess the damage caused to a vehicle or property after an incident, enabling insurers to better understand the cost of the claim.

In August 2022 Aviva acquired specialist MGA Azur Underwriting. As part of the deal, Aviva will acquire Azur's high-net-worth personal lines business in the UK and Ireland. In a press release, Aviva said that the deal will support its vision to become a market leader in high-net-worth personal lines. Following the transfer of AXA XL's private clients' team, Aviva's private clients business has been growing steadily over the last year, and this new purchase will help to bolster that growth.

In October 2022 Aviva and Pen Underwriting announced it was extending and expanding its strategic partnership, signing a multi-year contract.

During December 2022 the company released a new UBI product, dubbed Quotemehappy Connect, in partnership with telematics company IMS. The new product is an app-based UBI car insurance proposition which rewards safe driving. The product targets young drivers aged between 17 and 29-years. It provides customers with a weekly driver rating using a traffic light system plus a gold rating. Coverage includes a breakdown of a policyholder’s driving behaviours.

In March 2023, Aviva partnered with Stories, a property developer, to invest £100m in UK real estate and infrastructure projects to benefit local communities. The JV is the first funding commitment from Aviva Capital Partners (ACP), Aviva's new in-house capital unit.

Also in March 2023, Aviva announced their FY 2022 results. It revealed that its core businesses in the UK, Ireland and Canada grew in 2022, with customer numbers in the UK growing to 15.5m. The company also announced an additional return of capital to shareholders, via the launch of a £300m share buyback, to commence immediately. 

During April 2023 Aviva committed a further £150m to Aviva Ventures. The new fund's first investment was in Scan.com, a business helping individuals and organisations book diagnostics scans such as MRI, ultrasounds and x-rays. The company launched in 2017 and has a 150-strong network of scanning centres across the United Kingdom, helping over 10,000 patients. Aviva said the investment into Scan.com was a statement of its intent regarding future investments.