Insurer Aviva pumps out cash to keep payouts on track

London: Aviva boosted profits and cash generation in the first half of the year despite a challenging market backdrop, enabling the British insurer to raise its interim dividend, sending its shares higher. The company said on Thursday operating profit rose 13 per cent to £1.33 billion (Dh6.4 billion, $1.77 billion), helped by a strong performance in its UK life insurance business but weighed by a year-on-year rise in claims from natural catastrophes.

That was broadly in line with a company supplied consensus forecast of £1.31 billion and compared with 1.17 billion in the year-earlier period.

The rise was underpinned by a 7 per cent increase in written premiums at its general insurance division to £3.991 billion, a 7 per cent rise in the value of new business at its life insurance operations and a 23 per cent increase in assets under management on its UK life platform to 10.3 billion.