Hastings Group reports solid first half results

Hastings Group (‘Hastings’), the technology driven UK insurance provider, today announces its results for the six months ended 30 June 2022.

Toby van der Meer, Group CEO, commented:

“I am pleased to announce another solid set of results in a market that is  now experiencing claims inflation estimated at just over 10%. We continue to focus on pricing discipline, and have grown total premiums as well as increasing our home insurance customer base. We’ve also launched new digital capabilities for customers and continued to invest in technology to build the UK’s best and biggest digital insurance provider.

“As always, I’d like to thank my 3,300 Hastings colleagues for their great work during the first half of the year.”

Financial highlights

Solid financial performance for the six months to 30 June 2022, including:

• Gross written premium increased 6% year on year to £509.6m.
• Total live customer policies (‘LCP’) are up 3% year on year to nearly 3.2 million and retention rates have remained high. 
• The calendar year loss ratio for six months to 30 June 2022 was 75.4% (June 2021: 63.4%), with the increase on prior year being driven by a reduction in COVID-19 related effects and elevated claims inflation. The latter is driven by increasing general inflation across all claim types including repairs, total losses, theft, third party costs and bodily injury. The average cost of claims continues to rise across the market, with motor now experiencing claims inflation of 10-12%. 
• Hastings continues to prioritise pricing discipline over volume growth, and has raised prices ahead of the market. Market prices have risen slightly during the second quarter, but not yet at sufficient levels to cover claims inflation.
• Home LCP up 22 per cent year on year to over 355,000.
• Solid profits in this environment, including an operating result of £61.9m and profit before tax of £21.2m.

Strategic and operational initiatives

Continued investment in strategic initiatives:

• Improvements to mobile app functionality and growth in customer adoption, maintaining market leading digital capabilities.
• Launch of new data sources and pricing models in both motor and home insurance, improving risk selection.
• Continued product development including growth in multicar, telematics and a new online only product.
• Rollout of new counter-fraud and claims capabilities.
• Technology changes, including enhancements to core systems (Guidewire), the launch of a new customer contact platform and the migration of core data and technology platforms to the cloud. 

Our colleagues and communities

Ongoing commitment to supporting colleagues and the communities in which we operate:

• Further support for, and investment in, flexible working for colleagues.
• Participation in the 30% Club, including the mentoring programme, helping to build an increasingly diverse leadership team.
• Supporting colleague development with the first module of a new leadership programme and introducing a new learning platform for colleagues working in pricing, data and analytics roles.
• Significant focus on internal development and promotions, with over 800 colleagues promoted or having progressed to new levels in the past six months.
• Certified as a CarbonNeutral® organisation for the third year running, with overall carbon footprint reduced by 45% from our 2019 baseline, sending zero waste to landfill and reducing disposable waste in our offices.
• Hastings has supported the humanitarian response by donation to the UNICEF appeal, and has extended cover to include Ukrainian refugees as part of a customer’s home policy – approach since extended to refugees from any country.
• Hastings colleagues continue to complete community days for a wide range of charities including Warming up the Homeless, MIND, Alzheimer’s Society, St Michael Hospice, Macmillan, Loros and many more. 
• Colleagues in Leicester became business mentors to 210 year nine and ten students as part of our Futuready education programme. 

Ends

For more information, please contact pr@hastingsdirect.com 

About Hastings Group

Founded in 1996 in Bexhill-on-Sea on the Sussex coast, the Hastings Group is one of the leading general insurance providers to the UK market, with nearly 3.2 million live customer policies and employing over 3,300 colleagues.

Hastings provides simple and straightforward products and services to UK car, bike, van, and home insurance customers with around 90% of policies directly underwritten by the Group's Gibraltar based Underwriting business, Advantage Insurance Company Limited.
Hastings Direct is a trading name of Hastings Insurance Services Limited, the Group's UK broker, which also trades via 'Hastings Premier', 'Hastings Essential', 'Hastings Direct YouDrive', 'People's Choice' and 'insurePink'.

The Group operates as an insurance provider with two separate businesses. The Group's Retail business, Hastings Insurance Services Limited, is responsible for the end customer pricing, fraud management, product design, distribution, and management of the underlying customer relationships. The Group's Underwriting business, Advantage Insurance Company Limited, engages in risk selection, underlying technical pricing, reserving and claims handling. Retail is supported by, and benefits from, Underwriting's prudent approach to risk and reserving and from a panel of insurance partners which provide additional underwriting capacity. The Group's business model deliberately separates underlying product manufacturing from its distribution.

For more information visit the Hastings Group website.