Allianz chief sees room for underwriting improvement despite good results

Putting this in context, rival firms RSA and Ageas recorded overall CORs of 95.7% and 98.8% respectively.

Their commercial CORs were much less healthy at 100% and 110.9% respectively.

Axa produced a COR of 98.9% and would not reveal its commercial equivalent.

Discussing the insurer's results, Mr Torrance said: “There were further reserve releases in 2011 and we made an underwriting profit of £70m, 50% of which were reserve releases.

“A result at this level is not acceptable – it needs to be at