Irish Life Group paid €157 million in dividends to its overseas parent last year, bringing total distributions since it was bought from the State during the financial crisis to about €1.98 billion.
The payouts eclipse the €1.3 billion that Canada’s Great-West Lifeco paid for the Irish Republic’s largest life and pensions group in 2013. The dividends were paid to Irish Life Group’s immediate parent in the UK.
Irish Life Group, the holding company at the top of the group, led by chief executive Declan Bolger, delivered a net profit of €154.3 million last year, according to accounts filed with the Companies Registration Office (CRO). This was almost entirely down to dividends received from the group’s life and pensions subsidiary, Irish Life Assurance, and health insurance unit, Irish Life Health.
Payments from Irish Life Assurance dipped to €135 million in 2025 from €215 million a year earlier, while dividends from Irish Life Health doubled to €22 million.
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Still, a separate regulatory publication from Irish Life Assurance earlier this year – known as its solvency and financial condition report – showed that the division’s net profit rose more than eight per cent in 2025 to €156 million. This was driven by strong life and pension sales, which grew by almost 19 per cent on an annual premium equivalent (APE) basis breaching €1 billion for the first time.
The division paid out €404 million in claims to customers and their families affected by injury, illness and death last year.
Irish Life Health saw its net profit rise 84 per cent to €31 million last year, according to its latest SCFR. The second-largest health insurer in the State, with a market share of more than 20 per cent, paid out €590 million in hospital and day-to-day claims and benefits for customers last year.
The health business and rivals in the market increased premiums many times in recent years amid soaring claims costs.
The State bought Irish Life in 2011 from PTSB, then known as Irish Life & Permanent, for €1.3 billion to limit the taxpayer bailout bill for the mortgage-focused lender. It subsequently sold the business in 2013 for the same price to Great-West Lifeco.
PTSB shareholders are set to vote on Thursday on a €1.62 billion takeover bid for the bank by Austrian banking group Bawag. The Government is set to receive €931 million for its 57.5 per cent remaining stake in PTSB. It is on track to recover a total of €3.73 billion of PTSB’s €4 billion crisis-era bailout.
While Irish Life has paid big dividends to its Canadian parent over the years, its owner has also backed the business in investing to grow its customers by more than 60 per cent to 1.6 million over the period, helped by acquisitions.
In 2018, the group bought Invesco, the Irish Republic’s largest independent corporate pensions and investments consultancy. This purchase was followed in quick succession by the buying of other intermediaries, including Acumen & Trust, APT financial advice companies and Harvest Financial Services. Irish Life ultimately rolled these into a stand-alone wealth management business called Unio.
In 2021 the group bought Ark Life, the former AIB life insurance arm which stopped taking new business in 2012. Great-West Lifeco also entered a life and pensions joint venture with AIB, called AIB Life, in 2023.
Irish Life opened its redeveloped headquarters in Dublin’s inner city last month, a project that increased office space by about 40 per cent and cost close to €200 million.
