Record results for Admiral

Insurer Admiral announced a record half-year profit before tax of £105.3mm, up 5%, with turnover up 17% to £540.1m and said profit from UK car insurance was up 18%. It declared a record dividend of 27.7p.

Financial highlights (2008 in brackets)

• Group turnover £540.1m (£463.4m)
• Group net revenue £243.1m (£204.0m)
• Group profit before tax £105.3m (£100.3m)
• Interim dividend 27.7p (26.0p)
• Number of Group customers up 18% to 1.92m from 1.63m
• Profit from UK car insurance up 18% to £101.2m (£86.0m)
• UK ancillary income per vehicle steady at £71
• Turnover from outside the UK up 64% to £24.5m and 100,500 customers
• Total motor premiums £427m (£363m).
• UK car insurance customers increased 17% to 1.73m.
• UK combined operating ratio 82.1% (80.1%).
• Confused.com revenue £40.2m (£36.6m)
• Confused.com profits £11.0m (£15.6m).

Henry Engelhardt, chief executive, said: “Considering the general economic climate and pathetic investment returns this was an outstanding result. Once again, I’m happy to announce an all-time record for profits; that the business continued its strong growth; and that we will soon pay a record dividend.

“Key to our success was the great result turned in by the UK car insurance business. We increased the number of customers by 17% by giving a combination of competitive prices and great service. As well as growing the number of customers we increased premium rates by around 5.5% in the first half of 2009, meaning current rates are around 8% higher than 12 months ago.

“As the UK business goes from strength to strength we have continued to invest in our longterm future by developing our operations outside the UK.

Spanish practises

“Overall we now have over 100,000 customers outside the UK, in Spain, Germany and Italy and these businesses contributed £24.5m of turnover in the first six months of the year. On 30 March we launched Rastreator, our Spanish price comparison site. Looking to the future, we are working on the launch of a direct car insurance operation in the USA, based in Richmond, Virginia, which will be called Elephant. We are also starting work on two further price comparison operations in Italy and France.

“Confused.com started the year well, increasing revenue against a backdrop of a UK price comparison market which remains highly competitive. “It's a great set of numbers for the first half of the year, and I’m very pleased to say that, as a result, every member of staff will receive £1,500 of free shares in the Group, worth over £4.5m in total.”