What's next for Personal Lines insurance?
Today we have reported our third quarter financial results to the market so here’s a snapshot of how they’re looking.
- Our overall income was £945.3m, up by £15m when compared with the same period last year, mainly due to new deals across Household and non-motor Commercial lines.
- Motor income reduced for the first nine months of 2020, reflecting the impact of lower mobility on volumes; our disciplined underwriting rating action taken at the start of the year in response to claims inflation; and a subsequent reduction in pricing at the end of the first quarter in response to customers driving less.
- Our combined ratio of 94.6% and net result of £47.7m benefitted from lower claims frequency and strong prior year releases, mainly in Motor. This compensated for the impact of the adverse weather recorded in the summer and earlier in the year, and sector wide claims inflation. We saw Motor claims frequencies starting to rise again in the quarter as the summer months saw closer to normal driving patterns. It remains to be seen what impact the ongoing restrictions will have.
- Flood and storm events in August resulted in £7.4m impact on Household and Commercial non-motor partly offset by favourable weather reserves from the events in the first half of the year.
- Fitch Ratings affirmed Ageas Insurance Limited’s ‘A+’ Insurer Financial Strength Rating with a Stable Outlook (12 November 2020).
“I’m pleased to report that our underlying performance was healthy in the quarter. While we have seen lower motor claim volumes compensating for weather events, claims did increase over the last three months but are not yet back to pre-Covid levels. It is still early days to assess the impact of the new restrictions, although traffic volumes are visibly higher than in the first lockdown.
“As I reflect on the quarter and the ongoing unique circumstances, I’m immensely proud of the continued resilience of our teams and their work in looking after each other, our customers and distribution partners. Our caring customer response continues and is evidenced by our strong NPS scores, positive broker feedback and recent industry recognition.
“We now look ahead to the remainder of the year in the knowledge that we will need to remain agile and responsive to a dynamic set of circumstances, but confident that our work through the year sets us up well to continue to serve brokers, partners and customers in the manner they would expect of us.”
