The firm wants to use Direct Line Group to secure a greater market share in the sector, arguing it is a “big growth opportunity” moving forward, with the business able to plug its current market gaps. The insurer has ringfenced “specialty personal lines” to be delivered by Direct Line.

Aviva confirmed in its trading announcement for the first half of 2026 that gross written premium (GWP) had increased by 42% to £5.91bn from £4.14bn, following its purchase of Direct Line. The group’s general insurance operating profit increased from £648m to £905m, with the UK and Ireland operating profit rising by 50% to £643m.

Storah told Insurance Times: “We’re doubling down already on that business. We expect that will continue and there’s more to earn there.

“So far, we’ve realised £100m of savings from the acquisition. We expect that to be £130m by the end of the year and that will flow through into next year and increase next year. So, there’s plenty more to go at from a growth, optimising and efficiency gain in that business.

“With our existing books between Aviva and Direct Line Group, our market share is typically over 20%. But in the specialty personal lines business [specifically], our market share currently is about 6% to 7%.

“If you think we’ve got 22 million customers in the UK, historically Aviva has never sold any of them pet insurance. Well, a lot of them have pet insurance. So that’s a big growth opportunity. Same with the Green Flag business [and] Direct Line for Business.

“If we just get [improved] market share in the specialty lines business, that’s significant growth upside. And the specialty [personal] lines market is the same size as the UK property market, just [to] give a sense of the opportunity ahead of us. On specialty personal lines, we really want to ramp up that part of the business and apply Aviva’s scale and growth.”

Storah continued: “The teams are now unified. They’ve got single leaders across different brands, different parts of the business. The claims, customer service and operations are all unified.

“We’ve brought together the single view of who the key partners, outsourcing and other suppliers are. So, it’s running as one business. There’s just four more parts of the overall integration still to run, which will take through until 2028.”