PZU (PZAKY), UNIQA (UNIXY): Falling Car Values Shrink Casco Premiums

PZU Group (PZAKY) and UNIQA Insurance Group AG (UNIXY) both told investors on August 20, 2026 that the same thing is happening to their motor books in Poland and Central Europe. PZU attributes the decline in motor own-damage premium to the falling value of the vehicles it insures, while UNIQA says almost all of its Polish premium growth came from policy count and that its claims increase comes from larger individual payouts.

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How a Casco premium is calculated

Motor insurance splits into two parts. Third-party liability (TPL) pays for the other driver's car and injuries. Motor own damage — called Casco or MOD in Europe and Central Europe — pays for the policyholder's own car. The sum insured on a Casco policy is set from the vehicle's value at underwriting, and the premium is a rate applied to that sum insured. So for the same car, once the car is worth less, the insurer collects less premium even if the rate has not moved a single basis point and not one customer has left. European used-car prices have been falling steadily since mid-2025; the AUTO1 wholesale price index was still declining into early 2026, and nearly half of the dealers surveyed expected further declines during 2026 [4]. The claims side is calculated from parts and labor, which has nothing to do with what the car is worth today. The two sides move in opposite directions, and the gap between premium and claims widens.

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Rates barely moved, motor revenue fell 5.7%

PZU's finance chief stated the rule directly on the call [1]. The figures released the same day line up with it: in the first quarter of 2026, motor own-damage prices fell 0.5% while TPL prices rose 1.6% [2]; by the second quarter, motor own-damage revenue was down 5.7% to PLN 879 million and TPL revenue was down 5.7% to PLN 1,090 million [2]. Rates were roughly flat while revenue fell close to 6%, so that decline cannot be explained by price cuts alone. PZU also said its market share in Casco is higher than in TPL, which makes it more sensitive to this change, and that it is putting profitability ahead of market share [1]. UNIQA supplies a second vantage point on the same market: Polish P&C premiums grew 6.6% year to date, of which 4.6 percentage points came from volume and only 0.7 percentage points from price; its basic claims ratio sits at 53% to 54%, and the company says the increase comes from larger individual payouts rather than a higher number of claims [3].

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Motor premium growth stops being a read on competitiveness

If the premium base itself is shrinking, a decline in an insurer's motor revenue does not necessarily mean it lost customers or cut prices, and a worse combined ratio can come from a smaller earned-premium denominator. How much a company is affected depends on how large own-damage is inside its motor book, and PZU says its share there is higher than in TPL [1]. Rebuilding the base requires rate. The CEO of Polish competitor Warta said in a July interview that his company raised prices 8% back in April and accepted a temporary slowdown in sales, and that the market as a whole needs an adjustment of 10% to 15% [5] — far more than what is currently reaching policies [2][3]. One alternative explanation has to stay on the table: in the risk section of the same materials, PZU attributes motor own-damage price pressure to new competitors entering the Polish market [1]. That explanation and a shrinking premium base are not mutually exclusive, and the company has not sized them separately. The mechanism is also regional. LKQ said on its April 2026 call that North American used-car values improved every month of the quarter, with March alone up 6.2% [6]; in China, own-damage premium is priced off a model's historical loss and repair cost, and Ping An's own explainer gives an example where a CNY 25,000 drop in a car's price lowered the annual own-damage premium by only CNY 25 [7]. The metric to watch from here is how wide the gap stays between the year-on-year change in own-damage premium and the rate changes companies disclose.

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Companies exposed to the same mechanism

• Hagerty (HGTY): Writes agreed-value collector-car policies whose premium is set directly by the value agreed at underwriting; management has said that as insured values rise so do written premiums, and that roughly 20% of per-policy premium growth over the last 15 years came from members voluntarily raising their guaranteed values [8]. It sits on the same pricing rule, currently running the other way, so if collector-car values turn down the same base problem would reach its premiums.

• Copart (CPRT): Runs the online auctions where insurers sell damaged vehicles. Falling vehicle values and rising repair costs push the repair-or-write-off decision toward write-off at the same time, and management has said rising total-loss frequency is a function of ever-rising repair costs [9]; every write-off sends another car into its auction lanes.

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Sources

[1] Drillr · PZU Group (PZAKY) · 2026-08-20 · Q2/H1 2026 earnings call

"The price effect in motor own damage has its explanation. Cars are becoming less expensive. So this translates into reduced some [sum] insured. So the premium might actually go down because of the lower value of vehicles."

[2] Investing.com · PZU H1 2026 slides: profit rises 17% as diversification offsets motor pressure · 2026-08-20 · earnings-slide report · https://ca.investing.com/news/company-news/pzu-h1-2026-slides-profit-rises-17-as-diversification-offsets-motor-pressure-93CH-4810414

[3] Drillr · UNIQA Insurance Group AG (UNIXY) · 2026-08-20 · H1 2026 earnings call

[4] AUTO1 Group · AUTO1 Group Price Index, January 2026 · 2026-01-28 · European wholesale used-car price index and dealer survey · https://www.auto1-group.com/press/pressrelease/auto1-group-price-index-january-2026/

[5] XYZ "Poland Unpacked" · Interview with Jaroslaw Parkot, CEO of Warta (Talanx) · 2026-07-05 · media interview · https://xyz.pl/poland-unpacked/warta-bets-on-discipline-over-growth-as-insurance-price-war-intensifies-2397/

[6] Drillr · LKQ Corporation (LKQ) · 2026-04-30 · Q1 2026 earnings call

[7] Ping An · Official explainer, "The relationship between motor premium and car price and its effects" · 2026-08-21 · company explainer · https://www.pingan.com/official/strategyDetail/27703904

[8] Drillr · Hagerty (HGTY) · 2026-05-06 · Q1 2026 earnings call

[9] Drillr · Copart (CPRT) · 2026-05-21 · FY2026 Q3 earnings call

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