Admiral first-half profit up 5%
Admiral has posted pre-tax profit of £105.3 million for the first six months of the year, up 5% on the same period of 2008.
Profit from UK car insurance business soared 18% to £101.2 million and UK turnover leapt 17% to £540.1 million.
The group, which operates the confused.com website, said customer numbers rose 18% to 1.92 million.
Meanwhile, turnover from outside the UK increased 64% during the first half of 2009, to £24.5 million, with the group’s Spanish price comparison website achieving a successful launch in March.
Looking to the future, Admiral says it is working on plans to launch direct car insurance operation in the USA and will be starting work on two further price comparison operations, in Italy and France.
Group chief executive, Henry Engelhardt, comments: “Considering the general economic climate and pathetic investment returns this was an outstanding result.”
Admiral says it will be distributing over £4.5 million worth of shares to its 3,000 plus staff and the board declared a record interim dividend payment of 27.7p per share, compared with 26.0p last year.
The insurer has also reported a rise in fraudulent insurance claims, some of which are perpetrated by criminal gangs.
The group says it referred around one-third more suspicious claims to its specialist team during the first half of 2009, compared with a year ago.
Category: Admiral Insurance News, Financials, Insurance News
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