Zurich Insurance Group is fully delivering on its 2019 financial targets and is well positioned to deliver future earnings growth and attractive shareholder returns, as the company announced in a statement.

"I am very pleased that we are fully delivering on the financial targets that we set out back in 2016," said Group Chief Executive Officer Mario GRECO.

"Two years into our strategic cycle we are a very different company from the one we were in 2016. We are customer-led, with a more focused footprint and empowered local units and our management team is focused on disciplined execution and expanding the service offerings to deepen our customer relationships and drive profitable growth. Together with our strong capital position and cash generation this supports attractive and growing shareholder returns."

Zurich is on track to achieve its 2017-2019 financial targets. Zurich's business operating profit after tax return on equity for the first six months of 2018 was 12.3% and it achieved cumulative net expense savings of USD 900 million. Zurich will achieve net savings of USD 1.1 billion by the end of 2018, well in line with its end-2019 target of USD 1.5 billion.

According to the statement, "cash remittances for the first half of 2018 continued to be strong, putting Zurich on track to achieve the target of more than USD 9.5 billion over the three years. Zurich expects to generate accumulated cash remittances of more than USD 7 billion for the two years 2017 and 2018, and net cash remittances in excess of USD 1 billion per annum in Life for 2018-2021. Zurich remains strongly capitalized with an estimated Z-ECM ratio of 134%¹ as of the end of September 2018, well above the 100-120% target range. Together, these provide a strong and stable platform to deliver an attractive and growing dividend".