Investors can hope for increasing dividends

Frankfurt Good news for dividend hunters: The major European insurance companies have left the shock of the corona crisis behind. In the current fiscal year, Allianz, Axa, Generali, Sampo and Zurich should return to sustained dividend growth. This is what the analysts at the private bank Berenberg assume in a current industry study.

Accordingly, the shareholders had to accept losses in the pandemic year 2020: The total return from the share price and dividend with the five insurers, all of which combine several lines such as life, health and property and casualty insurance, averaged minus 9.6 percent . The corporations usually offer an average total return of plus 10.6 percent per year, as a long-term comparison since the end of 2003 shows.

The performance in the crisis was very disappointing, comments Berenberg analyst Michael Huttner. The real advantages of corporations, such as size and diversification, did not seem to have worked. Investors would therefore have turned more to those insurers that only serve one line of business.