Hiscox Ltd (LON:HSX) reported a 7.5% EPS beat on Wednesday, surpassing the company-collated consensus by 7.5%. This positive result was accompanied by the announcement of a 300m share buyback program, significantly exceeding the consensus estimate of $210m by 43%. The specialty insurer’s retail division demonstrated robust growth, with insurance contract written premiums increasing 6.3% year-on-year for the full year, up from 6.1% in the first nine months of 2025.

This division showed sequential improvement, with quarterly growth rates of 4.6%, 3.6%, 2.3%, and 7.3% in the first through fourth quarters of 2025. Hiscox USA insurance contract written premiums grew 7.3% in the fourth quarter, though this was below the Visible Alpha consensus of 9.1%. Full-year growth for the US division reached 4.4%, compared to expectations of 9.1%.