IAG says positive momentum continued in the first quarter and it is on track to deliver earnings guidance for this financial year while pursuing efficiencies to keep insurance affordable.

“The business is performing in line with our expectations and, based on what we have seen to date, we remain confident in the outlook for the group,” CEO Nick Hawkins told the annual meeting today.

Mr Hawkins said the company expects its proposed RAC Insurance acquisition in WA to be completed next calendar year after providing more submissions to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

“We continue to work through the process ... including last week making significant concessions to address the ACCC’s competition concerns, while underlining the substantial public benefits of the proposed partnership,” he said.

Shareholders questioned IAG on affordability issues and premium rises outpacing the consumer price index, plus artificial intelligence impacts.

Mr Hawkins said IAG is not “tone deaf” to affordability concerns. Claims inflation is driven by building and repair costs and the nation needs to strengthen resilience as natural peril impacts increase.

“It’s a complex problem,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can to run our company as efficiently as we can, so we can we can manage the cost of insurance as best we can.”

IAG says it has a clear strategy for AI and is looking at future trends, which include customers using agents for purchasing.

“It feels like over the next short period, agentic commerce is coming and we need to be able to set, with human oversight, appropriate governance, appropriate security, making sure that’s a safe environment for IAG and, importantly, a safe environment for the customers that want to transact with us,” Mr Hawkins said. “It’s definitely an emerging topic.”

Mr Hawkins said IAG is a founding member of the Gradient Institute, focused on the ethical use of AI.

“We have a lot of rigour in our processes ... with that lens specifically.”

Mr Hawkins told the meeting the markets IAG operates in are structurally growing and general insurance premiums in Australia and New Zealand are forecast to gain about 6% a year through to 2030.

---

From the latest Insurance News magazine: Why another of Australia's broking giants is in line to leave the sharemarket, as a $7.7 billion buyout nears completion

---