Howden Insurance is a “phenomenal British success story,” its boss David Howden told City AM.
“We are really big believers in the London market” he stated, highlighting that his firm invested £1.6bn into the UK market over the last four years , employing over 7,000 people in the country.
The London insurance market is a “phenomenally important part of UK GDP”, so we’re all trying to get the UK GDP up, and the insurance market is one of the real success stories” on that.
This comes after his insurance broker firm, Howden, announced today that it broke the £3bn revenue barrier over the last financial year thanks to double-digit “organic growth”.
“In our 30th year, from a startup, we broke through that £3bn pound revenue mark, but critically, it was the fourth year in a row where we had double digit organic growth,” Howden stated.
Its adjusted revenue grew by 23 per cent to over £3bn, up from £2.44bn recorded in the previous year. While its consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) grew to £922.2m, up from its 2023 figure of £780m.
The insurer reported growth across all of its divisions, as reinsurance led with 30 per cent increase in revenue, followed by insurance broking at 14 per cent, and managing general agent (DUAL) growing by six per cent.
The firm has 1.7m policyholders, acting for 76 per cent of the speciality clients.
Over 2024, Howden made 65 strategic acquisitions including asset deals.
While its global footprint grew to 55 countries, including investing over £2bn in the US for the big deals such as its acquisition of TigerRisk.
Investing in branding
The insurer has been pushing its brand out via sponsorship partnerships with the sport sector, including the British & Irish Lions rugby union team and the British team part of the SailGP sailing competition.
“if you look at our enterprise value it would be approaching £20bn today, it would put us in the top of the FTSE 100 and yet we probably weren’t as well known as we should have been, that is the reality,” Howden explained.
He added “therefore we decided to invest very heavily in telling our wonderful story.”
Howden noted that new talent contributed 30 per cent to the organic revenue growth after it welcomed 650 new employees over 2024.
The insurer revealed its new internal share price, independently valued by Morgan Stanley, stood at £61, “this is 10 times up from what it was 10 years ago” where a share was £5.76.
Legal issues
Howden’s hiring has been under the spotlight recently. There has been a spree of legal challenges over teams leaving competitors to join Howden.
City AM revealed in November 2023 that Aon sued Howden over poaching ‘raids’. This case is still open, with parties attending several application hearings since.
This came after Howden was sued over poaching earlier in 2023 by reinsurance business Guy Carpenter and its parent company, Marsh McLennan. This case in October 2023, and according to Insurance Business, it had to agree to a set of demands, including issuing an apology.
Just last month, City AM also revealed that insurance intermediary group PIB and its subsidiary Acquinex launched legal proceedings over poaching a number of employees to its underwriting division, DUAL Group.
Howden stated that he wasn’t “going to comment on specific litigation.” but highlighted “just to be very clear, we never encourage ourselves or others in any way to breach any legal responsibility requirements.”
He added that he “believes that it should be a free marketplace of talent”.