Co-op hails performance in face of summer flooding

Speaking to Insurance Age, managing director of general insurance, David Neave, said the provider had not been knocked off course by the summer flooding.

It comes after the insurer's post-tax profits soared to £20m, replacing the £2.4m loss posted for the same period last year.

"Over the first half of 2012 the level of claims has not been out of line with our expectations," said Mr Neave. "We would have preferred not to have had these [summer flooding claims] but they have not had a massive impact on our results.

"[But] we are always open to what the weather may throw at us - I'm too old and experienced to count my chickens in that respect."

He also pointed to the 14-point improvement in the insurer's combined operating ratio from 112.5% to 98.4% as a positive indicator of performance, adding it compared "favourably" to other companies. 

Mr Neave said the growth in the Co-op's profits were largely fuelled by the increased business volumes for its home insurance products.

The take-up of these policies has been buoyed since the 2009 merger with Britannia. He said they have also benefited from the insurer developing bespoke offerings, as well as introducing new entries for aggregator markets.

Positive
And on the day that results for Co-op's food and banking divisions have not been as encouraging, Mr Neave was pleased the insurance arm's performance was positive.

He said: "I am very pleased, it's a really good set of results, it's good to make a contribution to the group results.

"As a much broader group offering a whole range of services, that's the nature of the business, parts of that will be contributing better or worse than average."

And looking ahead to the end of 2012 and 2013 Mr Neave said the Co-op was well placed to react to the changes set to be brought about by the EU gender directive for motor insurance and implementation of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act reforms.

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