Aviva reports UK profit rise for 2018

Combined operating ratio remained flat at 93.8%.

Aviva has posted a 4% rise in operating profit for the UK general insurance business to £415m in 2018 from £400m in 2017.

Its UK combined operating ratio (COR) remained flat at 93.8% for 2018 (2017: 93.9%), while it also reported a small rise in total net written premiums (NWP) in the UK to £4.19bn in 2018 (2017: £4.08bn).

Looking at commercial lines, NWP rose by 8% to £1.70bn (2017: £1.58bn), while commercial COR improved to 96.1% in 2018 from 96.7% in the preceding year.

Commercial motor saw a 4% increase in NWP to £532m (2017: £514m), and commercial lines non-motor NWP grew by 10% to £1.17bn in 2018 (2017: £1.06bn).

Personal lines
In personal lines NWP also remained relatively flat at £2.49bn (2017: £2.50bn), while its personal lines COR came in at 92.4% in 2018 (2017: 92.0%).

Personal motor saw a 1% decline in NWP to £1.12bn in 2018 (2017: £1.14bn), while personal non-motor NWP went up by 1% to £1.37bn, compared to £1.36bn in 2017.

On group level Aviva reported a COR of 96.6%, which is the same as last year, and NWP was also flat at £9.11bn in 2018 (2017: £9.14bn).

Operating profit for the whole group was £3.12bn in 2018, up by 2% from the £3.07bn reported last year.

Re-energise
Aviva announced earlier this week that Maurice Tulloch was taking over the role of chief executive officer. He replaced Mark Wilson who left the provider in October last year.

Brokers welcomed the move, with many stating they were happy about the insurer’s decision to make an internal appointment.

Tulloch commented: “I am excited to be taking over as CEO of Aviva. We have strong foundations but we are only scratching the surface of our full potential. There’s a huge opportunity here.

“At the heart of it, it’s all about insurance fundamentals, delivering excellent customer experience, tackling complexity and injecting a different pace of change into Aviva. And that will be just the start. I am determined to re-energise Aviva and deliver long term growth for our shareholders.”

Progress
Commenting on the results, Sir Adrian Montague, chairman of Aviva, said: “Aviva made steady progress in 2018.

“We grew profits, had a record year for cash remittances and further increased our solvency cover ratio to 204%. As a result, the board has increased the full year dividend by 9% to 30.0 pence per share.”

He continued: “We increased profit in the UK, where we won more workplace pension schemes and bulk annuity deals, and across our international businesses, where we expanded and diversified our distribution.

“Aviva Investors had a more challenging year due to difficult investment markets and we have continued to invest in our asset management expertise.”

Source: insuranceage