Allianz Places Its Chips on Driverless Cars While Keeping the Buyback Engine Humming

Allianz secures a three-year mandate to insure Waymo's robotaxi fleet, starting in Munich, as investors weigh buybacks against a pricier AA deal.

Allianz has quietly positioned itself at the center of Europe's emerging autonomous mobility market, securing a three-year mandate to insure Waymo's robotaxi fleet through its Allianz Partners subsidiary. The Munich-based insurer will also handle claims processing, confirming the arrangement on Wednesday. The tie-up spans four distinct workstreams: insurance and risk solutions, digital claims settlement via the Solvd unit, joint safety research, and vehicle recovery. Beyond Allianz Partners, the group has pulled in its Center for Technology, Allianz Versicherungs-AG, and Allianz Commercial — a breadth of involvement that signals this is a strategic entry into a new risk category rather than a side venture.

Waymo, which announced in late August that it would bring robotaxis to Germany, plans to start with Munich. Test drives are slated for the autumn, with commercial operations targeted for the end of 2027. For Allianz, the partnership offers an early foothold in a market still taking shape — including the unresolved question of how liability and damage claims will be handled for driverless vehicles. Waymo points to its own data showing its systems cause 94 percent fewer accidents involving serious injuries than human drivers, an argument likely to feed directly into Allianz's risk modeling.

Market Response and the Capital Question

Investors greeted the news with measured optimism. The stock climbed 1.3 percent during the session to EUR 449.30, leaving it just over one percent shy of its 52-week high and comfortably above its 200-day moving average of EUR 393.80 — a signal that the upward trend of recent months remains intact. A dividend of EUR 18.58 per share is expected for the current financial year, up from EUR 17.10 a year earlier. Third-quarter results are due on November 12, when shareholders may get their first indication of whether new partnerships like the Waymo deal are already feeding into premium income.

That same November date serves as the next checkpoint on a separate front: the durability of the capital base underpinning Allianz's shareholder returns. The group kept its buyback program rolling last week, repurchasing another 303,283 of its own shares between September 7 and 11. Since the current program began on March 13, the total has reached just under 5.94 million shares, acquired at average prices between EUR 436.50 and EUR 447.28. The repurchases are running alongside the already-consumed takeover saga surrounding AA, the British roadside assistance provider.

At the heart of the matter is the Solvency II ratio — the metric that ultimately dictates how much room Allianz has for buybacks, dividends, and acquisitions before regulators expect it to hoard capital. So long as the ratio stays well above the supervisory comfort threshold, both the buyback and the AA deal are financeable without cannibalizing each other. Should the AA offer rise from the originally planned EUR 5.8 billion to roughly USD 6.77 billion, as media reports have discussed, part of that buffer would be tied up — sharpening the question of capital allocation.

Two Readings of the Same Balance Sheet

Optimists point to operating strength. Allianz expects to hit its full-year target of EUR 17.4 billion in operating profit, give or take EUR 1 billion. If that earnings momentum holds, the group generates enough free capital surplus to absorb a pricier AA acquisition without slowing buybacks. Of the up to EUR 2.5 billion earmarked for the repurchase program launched in February, EUR 1.4 billion was already deployed in the first half — a sign management is not deprioritizing shareholder returns despite the acquisition plans.

The bear case rests on two burdens arriving at once. If the AA price tag does climb beyond the original EUR 5.8 billion, Allianz must decide whether to tie up solvency capital that would otherwise fund buybacks. At the same time, the group faces a leadership transition: Günther Thallinger will leave the board at the end of 2026, and the board will shrink from nine members to eight. Tomas Kunzmann is set to step up on January 1, 2027, taking over the Asia-Pacific region and global health insurance portfolio currently overseen by Klaus-Peter Röhler — a reshuffle that must run smoothly to avoid siphoning off additional capacity. Adding to the cautious camp, Barclays has kept its "Underweight" rating, a stance that sits well below the current share price and points to structural valuation concerns.

The current price of EUR 447.40 is just 1.6 percent below the 52-week high of EUR 454.50 set on September 3, suggesting the market still believes Allianz can carry both buybacks and acquisitions without eroding its substance. Should the solvency ratio come under pressure while a larger acquisition price needs financing, the pace of repurchases would become the first test of that conviction.

Innovation as a Parallel Track

The Waymo cooperation fits a broader pattern of Allianz activity in technology and startups. In Turkey, the local unit simultaneously wrapped up the sixth round of its HackZone support program, run jointly with Tenity. Over six years, roughly 700 startups have been evaluated, 53 proofs-of-concept realized, and 20 projects actually implemented. The participating startups' investment sum recently surpassed USD 17 million, up USD 2 million from the previous year.

For investors, the picture that emerges is of a conglomerate flanking its core business with innovation initiatives that carry little near-term balance-sheet weight. The Waymo partnership stands out as the clearest bet on a future growth field: insurance solutions for a form of mobility that does not yet exist in Europe in this shape. Whether the capital cushion can keep funding both that ambition and the steady return of cash to shareholders is the question November 12 will begin to answer.