Admiral revenues pass £1.6bn as four millionth car gets cover

Insurance business Admiral Group plc drove its profits up by more than £17m in the first half of 2018.

The Cardiff-headquartered firm generated a pre-tax profit of £210.7m in the six months to June 30, up 9% from £193.4m during the same period in 2017.

Admiral has seen a similar upward trend in its group turnover over the last three years, having reported revenues of £1.26bn during H1 2016, £1.45bn in H1 2017 and now £1.66bn this year.

Internationally, Admiral has arms operating in France (under the L’olivier brand), Spain (as Admiral Seguros) and Italy (ConTe).

The latter is its largest overseas business. ConTe celebrated 10 years of operation in H1 2018 and had increased its vehicles insured by 17% to 539,600 at the end of the six months.

Group CEO David Stevens said in a statement: “[Our] European insurers delivered overall profitability whilst growing the business by almost a fifth in a year.

“But that’s not the only important milestone in the first half, which was characterised by substantial growth across almost all our businesses.”

He continued: “Most importantly, the core UK car insurance business continues to grow both in terms of profit and customer numbers. Early in 2018 we passed the four million mark for cars on cover – the car that hit the milestone was a Peugeot 108; our first 25 years ago was an Isuzu Piazza.”