Real UK financial assets have barely grown since 2019 as global markets race ahead
AI is rewriting the rules of wealth creation – and the insurance industry is squarely in the crossfire.
Global household financial assets rose 8.6% to a record €268.4 trillion in 2025, according to Allianz Research’s 17th annual Global Wealth Report. Markets did most of the work. Rising asset prices generated roughly four out of every five euros of new wealth, while fresh household savings declined 5.4% to €4.1 trillion. The headline looks impressive until inflation is factored in. Nominal assets are up 50% since 2019, but real wealth grew only 23%. Purchasing power sits just 5% above its 2021 level.
The distribution of those gains is where the insurance industry’s exposure becomes evident.
Markets do the heavy lifting, but not everyone benefits
Of all the major developed markets, Western Europe has the weakest claim on this record. Real financial assets in Western Europe grew just 0.5% above their 2019 level by the end of 2025, according to Allianz Research. Over the same period, real financial assets in China rose 70%, in Asia excluding Japan and China by 40%, and in North America by 21%. Western Europe was not merely the slowest-growing region; it was the only one to experience near-stagnation in real terms.
The UK sits at the lower end of the European pack. Net financial assets per capita stood at €72,200 in 2025, ranking the UK 18th globally and below most of its Western European peers. The gap is structural. European households, including British ones, allocate a far smaller share of their portfolios to securities than North American households do. Valuation gains accounted for 71% of North American financial asset growth over the past decade, against 36% in Western Europe. Saving more does not produce more wealth when savings sit in low-yielding deposits rather than capital markets.
For the UK insurance market, the practical read is twofold. Life and pension brokers operate in a market where household savings behaviour lags behind the global trend toward securities, and where real wealth creation has barely moved in six years. A sharp correction in AI-linked equities would not hit UK household balance sheets with the same direct force it would in the US, but macroeconomic spillover through trade, credit, and business confidence would still reach UK commercial lines books.
Insurance and pensions losing ground to securities
The Allianz report also tracks a structural shift beyond the short-term correction risk. Insurance and pension assets grew only 5.0% in 2025, less than half the rate of securities, which rose 12.4%. Their share of global financial assets fell to a record low of 24.8%, down 7.4 percentage points from 2005. In North America, inflows into insurance and pension products fell 40.8% in 2025.
The long-run picture is sharper still. In the decade before the pandemic, insurance and pension products attracted an average of 44% of new household savings annually, according to Allianz Research. In 2025, that share was 22.4%.
Household savings have tilted toward capital markets in a way that amplifies both the upside of a bull run and the downside of a correction. The concentration of wealth in securities-heavy portfolios is not just a market risk; it is also an underwriting risk. The clients holding the most volatile assets are the same people and businesses buying D&O, financial lines, and high-net-worth personal coverage.
Coverage gaps are also widening at the policy level. ISO’s generative AI exclusion is already on thousands of CGL policies, a sign that the insurance industry is still catching up to where the risk actually sits.
Who captures AI’s gains
Beyond the correction scenario, the Allianz report raises a longer-run question the insurance industry has a stake in. Allianz Research estimates that AI could affect approximately one in four jobs across major economies over the next three years. Reorganization would account for 10% of those jobs, augmentation for 5%, and displacement for 8%. If productivity gains flow primarily into profits rather than wages, asset owners capture a disproportionate share. The top 10% of households globally already own 85.4% of net financial assets.
A shift in value creation from labor toward capital widens the gap between those with transferable assets to insure and those without. It also expands liability exposure tied to AI governance, as corporate boards face increasing scrutiny over how AI is adopted, disclosed, and managed.
“AI could become the next great wealth engine, but the key question is who gets a stake in it,” said Katharina Utermoehl, head of thematic and policy research at Allianz Research.
Global financial assets are expected to grow by around 9% in 2026, Allianz Research projects, before settling at 5% to 6% annually over the medium term as fragmentation, persistent inflation, and elevated public debt constrain returns. For brokers and underwriters pricing financial lines, D&O, and life and annuity products, the Allianz report is more useful than a market summary. It maps where concentrated wealth, elevated valuations, and AI dependency have built up pressure, and what happens to insurance exposures when that pressure releases.
