Zurich Insurance Earnings Boosted by Global Data Center Demand

Zurich Insurance Group AG reported a 13% gain in profit for the first half of 2026 and said it doesn’t expect to have any material exposure to the impact of extreme heat and ongoing wildfires.

Group operating profit rose to $4.77 billion, the insurer said on Thursday. Analysts had estimated $4.73 billion. Net income increased 14% to $3.49 billion from the same period a year earlier.

“We don’t have any material exposure at the moment to the wildfires,” Chief Executive Mario Greco said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “We know prevention, we know mitigation of wildfires, this is something that unfortunately we are an expert of,” he said.

Zurich Insurance’s key property and casualty unit rose by 12% on a like-for-like basis from the same period a year earlier, with $2.81 billion in operating profit, in line with analyst estimates, and a 92.7% combined ratio, a key profitability measure for insurers.

Operating profit at the Farmers unit came in below estimates at $1.18 billion.

The company said it was ahead of all its targets in the current strategic cycle and was raising its guidance for its life unit, which is now expected to grow by at least 10% in 2026.

Zurich also said it saw accelerating demand across all businesses and that AI demand continues to boost the need for data center infrastructure not just in the U.S. but also across the globe. Global specialty insurance premiums increased 8% to $5.5 billion in the period.

Shares Down

Citi analyst James Shuck said he expected fading growth in North American commercial premiums and a weaker underlying combined operating ratio to weigh on the share price today.

The firm’s shares were down more than 3% in early trading in Zurich.

Zurich is in the process of acquiring specialty insurer Beazley Plc. as part of an $11 billion deal that won the approval of the U.K. firm’s board in March. The deal is set to create a global leader in specialty insurance with about $15 billion of gross written premiums and leverage Beazley’s presence in the Lloyd’s of London market.

On Wednesday Beazley reported that its profit halved for the first six months of the year due to softening conditions in the specialty insurance market and larger payouts to customers on the back of increasing geopolitical events and cyber risk exposures.

Vontobel analyst Matteo Lindauer said, “the retention of Beazley’s underwriters is key to a successful and accretive outcome” to the deal. Greco, who has signaled he’ll remain in his role until the firm has integrated Beazley, said he hopes to get all the regulatory approvals for it to go through in the coming months.

On Thursday, the insurer didn’t provide any additional details on an ongoing enforcement proceeding by the Swiss regulator Finma that has resulted in a sales ban on some policies in Zurich’s Swiss corporate life and pensions unit. The firm has let go of more than 12 employees as a result, Greco last month told Bloomberg.

Greco said he’s confident that Finma will recognize the changes the firm has made.