Brit profits fall and drag COR with them

The insurer reported that its GWP had shrunk to £1.49bn from £1.53bn the previous year with pre-tax profit tumbling by over a third to £75.8m (2010: £116.4m). The group also released £89.9m of claims reserves from prior years.

The provider's COR also jumped up in the year ended 31 December 2011 by 2.5% to 99.6%. It added that it achieved premium rate increases of 1.8% for the year which was an improvement on the 1% achieved the year before.

The UK operation saw the largest premium rate increase