Utmost will publish its full-year trading update around mid-February, with its annual results to be published in mid-April. What can you already tell us about Utmost’s performance in 2025?
Jurgen Vanhoenacker. – “Overall, 2025 was a very strong year, both for the group and for Utmost Luxembourg. By the end of the first half, the group had already reported more than €6bn in new business premiums and around €125bn in assets under management. That commercial momentum continued in the second half of the year.
What are Utmost’s main markets?
“Last year, the UK was our number one market, followed by France, Sweden and Italy.
What can you tell us specifically about the Italian market in 2025?
“Our overall performance in Italy was very good, despite a very challenging year. It is a demanding market, with several regulatory and tax changes. That said, we made it very clear to the market that we remain fully committed to Italy. We continue to rely on a very strong distribution network made up of banking partners, family offices and asset managers. I believe it is our long-term presence and the lasting relationships we have built with these partners that allowed us to deliver a very solid performance last year, despite all the changes. It is also worth noting that we are not positioned in traditional guaranteed funds. We offer only unit-linked products, which are tied to investment funds and where the policyholder bears the full investment risk. In Italy, that can sometimes be a more difficult positioning, as traditional guaranteed-type products still largely dominate.
Luxembourg’s insurance regulator (CAA) has noted “anaemic” profitability in recent years on products aimed at wealthy clients. Does that apply to you?
“The reality in our sector is that profitability is under pressure from both sides: pricing and costs. As far as we are concerned, we are a very profitable company. In the first half of 2025, the group’s operating margin stood at 42%. That cannot be described as anaemic profitability. It allows us to continue investing in the business.
That said, we cannot afford to be complacent. We operate in a highly competitive environment that requires strict pricing discipline. You also have to be prepared to turn down business when the price does not reflect the value we believe we bring. That is not easy, but we do not want to get into a race to the bottom. We have put in place a clear framework setting pricing limits we will not go beyond. Over the past five years, our average pricing has, in fact, remained relatively stable. The real challenge is to develop higher value-added solutions that justify a higher price, but that is obviously much more difficult.
For a market like Sweden, we can offer a solution based either in Ireland or in Luxembourg.
Where do you stand on the post-merger integration between Lombard and Utmost?
“The integration as such is complete. We have streamlined a number of functions across the group. We also delivered a very ambitious rebranding project: thousands of contractual documents had to be renamed and 70,000 bank accounts had to be relabelled. That work was successfully finalised at the end of last year.
How do the different entities within the Utmost group fit together?
“We have Utmost Luxembourg, Utmost Dublin, Utmost Isle of Man and Utmost Guernsey. These are four separate booking centres and, in a way, four fully fledged insurance companies. In practical terms, this means we can approach a distribution partner and say: we cover all these jurisdictions. For a market like Sweden, for example, we can offer a solution based either in Ireland or in Luxembourg. That provides far greater flexibility and a wider range of solutions and product structures to meet clients’ needs.
There is, of course, some overlap between the entities, which reflects the group’s history, but there is also a strong degree of complementarity. That complementarity can be geographical. For instance, Ireland was not really present in France or Belgium, whereas Luxembourg is.
What synergies are you aiming for?
“There was never any question of integrating Lombard International, now known as Utmost Luxembourg, from an operational point of view. We remain a fully independent insurer, just like the group’s three other companies. However, we are now in a very strong position to share a number of skills, areas of expertise and services across the group.
We can now approach the market as one global team, while still offering different options depending on clients and jurisdictions. In my view, that is a fairly unique proposition in the sector: an insurance group specialising in unit-linked solutions for wealth advisors, covering so many markets and with four separate insurance companies.
The combination of scale and focus is extremely powerful.
What is Utmost’s growth strategy in Europe?
“First, it is worth going back to the fundamentals. If you look at the volume of private wealth around the world, it is enormous. If you consider the amounts that will be passed from one generation to the next this year, and over the next five or ten years, they are colossal. Add to that the geopolitical backdrop and the many uncertainties we face: all this reinforces the need for solutions like ours. Clients need to plan how to protect and pass on their wealth. That is the core belief underpinning our business.
More specifically for Utmost, two elements fundamentally set us apart. The first is focus. We do not want to be a generalist player offering pensions, protection, non-life insurance and so on. We want to be a specialist in unit-linked solutions for wealthy clients. That is also why Utmost announced last December the sale of its pensions business. It also ties in with our decision not to move into the retail market, but to target the upper affluent, high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth segments, where we believe we bring real value.
And the second element?
“Our other major differentiator is our global dimension. This is reflected first in our broad geographical coverage, with solutions offered in 16 European countries as well as in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. It is also reflected in our presence in major financial centres, from Milan to Paris, London, Madrid, Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong. Finally, our multi-carrier model allows us to offer structures from Luxembourg, Ireland, the Isle of Man or Guernsey.
One last point that is often underestimated: in our sector, size matters. To be profitable in this business, you need to reach critical mass. With a portfolio of €10bn or €15bn, it is extremely difficult to absorb the costs linked to regulation, compliance, technological transformation and so on. That is where the Utmost’s strategy makes perfect sense. The combination of scale and focus is extremely powerful. I have worked in this sector for 25 years: for me, life insurance has never been more exciting than it is today.
The sector saw a first wave of consolidation in the early 2000s and a second more recently. Do you intend to be part of this consolidation?
“Who knows? I am not the one setting the shareholders’ agenda, but I am convinced there will be further consolidation in the future. What is certain, once again, is that size matters. We see that every day. Scale provides a very strong financial base. Smaller players are much more exposed to volatility in their business.
If I look across all our markets, pricing pressure exists everywhere.
How do you attract larger portfolios to Luxembourg?
“Distribution in the ultra-high-net-worth segment happens through our distribution partners, in a fairly similar way to the more traditional high net worth segment. We receive large cases introduced by major wealth managers and large private banks.
Over the years, we have also built up a very dense network of contacts in the family office and multi-family office world. It is usually through these channels that we see clients looking to invest €20m, €30m, €50m or even €100m. Clearly, before a distribution partner entrusts you with a client of that size, you need to have built a long-term relationship based on trust and strong credibility. These are obviously not the first cases they will hand over.
What role do France and Italy play in your growth strategy?
“For Utmost, France and Italy have long been key markets and should remain so in the years ahead. Even if some years are more mixed than others, we take a long-term view. Compared with the overall Luxembourg market, these two countries represent a smaller share of our portfolio than for some other players. The UK, Sweden and the Iberian Peninsula also play a major role, which strengthens our overall diversification.
The Italian market is costly, with tax prepayments on mathematical reserves, and pricing is lower. Do you plan to review your presence in Italy as part of your regular market review?
“No. If I look across all our markets, pricing pressure exists everywhere. We have a branch in Milan and we will continue to invest there. In the coming weeks, new people will be joining the local team. A new branch manager will also be appointed. For us, our presence in Italy is clearly long term. More generally, we believe that having teams on the ground, locally, is very important from both a commercial and a strategic perspective.
What are your expectations for 2026?
“We remain very positive and confident in our ability to maintain growth and a very strong pace of new business. A good indicator for us is the state of the commercial pipeline at the start of the year. And we can clearly see that this pipeline is stronger than it was at the same time last year.”
