By Iain Withers and Yamini Kalia<\/p>\n
LONDON, May 14 (Reuters) – Aviva CEO Amanda Blanc said on Thursday that businesses were being harmed by \u200cpolitical turmoil in Britain, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces \u200ca potential leadership challenge.<\/p>\n
“There have been too many changes of government strategy, leadership, just in my \u200bsix years of being CEO, and I think that is harmful to a major economy such as the UK and how we are perceived abroad,” Blanc told Reuters.<\/p>\n
“We don’t operate in a vacuum, and we think it’s very important \u200cthat we get some \u2060stability,” Blanc added in an interview after Aviva reported a 19% rise in first-quarter general insurance premiums to 3.4 billion \u2060pounds ($4.6 billion).<\/p>\n
Blanc said many of the Labour government’s policies, including on pensions reform, had been well received by companies, but uncertainty had consequences, citing the markets crisis \u200bduring \u200bthe short-lived premiership of former Conservative leader \u200bLiz Truss.<\/p>\n
“We’ve only got to \u200clook at the market reaction to (Truss’) mini-budget, to gilts – these are the sort of things that really matter,” Blanc added.<\/p>\n
DIRECT LINE BOOSTS NUMBERS<\/p>\n
Aviva completed Blanc’s biggest deal yet with its 3.7 billion pound takeover of motor insurer Direct Line, helping the FTSE 100 insurer weather market volatility as sales through \u200cprice comparison sites nearly doubled since the \u200bstart of 2026.<\/p>\n
However, analysts at RBC noted weaker \u200bthan expected margins in its \u200bretirement business. Aviva shares traded broadly flat.<\/p>\n
Aviva, which offers car, \u200chome and life insurance in Britain, \u200bIreland and Canada, \u200bsaid its wealth net flows surged 49% to 3.3 billion pounds in the quarter.<\/p>\n
Blanc said flows had been boosted by its workplace pensions \u200band adviser units, with \u200cflows also performing well after the quarterly period ended.<\/p>\n
($1 = 0.7398 pounds)<\/p>\n
(Reporting \u200bby Iain Withers in London and Yamini Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing \u200bby Mrigank Dhaniwala and Alexander Smith)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Iain Withers and Yamini Kalia LONDON, May 14 (Reuters) – Aviva CEO Amanda Blanc said on Thursday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[16773,16774,94,14299,16775,5,6],"class_list":["post-36043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-amanda-blanc","tag-aviva","tag-keir-starmer","tag-leadership-challenge","tag-political-turmoil","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116572162785564594","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}