Hastings Group reports fourth quarter results

Hastings Group (‘Hastings’), the technology driven UK insurance provider and part of the Sampo Group (‘Sampo’), reports today on performance for the twelve months ended 31 December 2024.

Toby van der Meer, Group CEO, commented:

“Hastings has delivered a strong set of results for 2024 with increases in policy count, premium and operational profit, in a market that has seen prices softening as claims inflation has eased. Our PCW focus, pricing capabilities, advanced anti-fraud, and disciplined risk selection has helped to secure our position as one of the most competitive UK motor and home insurance providers. With total policy count increasing 12% year-on-year to 3.9 million, we are helping more customers save money on their insurance than ever before.

Our ongoing investment into digital and customer service capabilities has continued, driving higher net promotor scores, lower complaints, and higher than market average customer retention rates. This has been enabled by some fantastic work by our Hastings colleagues, also leading to us being named the UK’s #1 Best Big Company to Work in 2024.

The government’s focus on looking at ways to reduce insurance premiums for UK customers has our full support. In particular we welcome any efforts to improve road safety, tackle the drivers of rising claims costs, reduce vehicle theft and to address the ongoing problem of insurance fraud.

As always, I’d like to thank my Hastings colleagues for their incredible work and dedication to our customers, each other, and local communities throughout the year.”

Financial highlights

Strong performance for the twelve months ended 31 December 2024, including:

• Live customer polices (‘LCP’) increased 12% year-on-year to 3.9 million policies at 31 December 2024, largely due to increased new business sales. Motor policies increased by 8% year-on-year, while home LCP grew by 34% year-on-year following continued momentum in Q4.
• Gross written premium up 23% year-on-year to £1,830.1m, reflecting increases in customer numbers and earn through of higher premiums.
• The calendar year loss ratio for 2024 was 61.6% (2023: 63.3%), as a results of benign weather experience, alongside underwriting and claims action.
• Operating ratio¹ of 88.5% a 1.2 percentage point improvement year-on-year, driven by a stronger loss ratio, whilst operating expenses grew in line with revenue growth because of higher acquisition related expenses, and continued investment into operational and servicing capabilities.
• Operational profit² increased by 70% to £193.2m, reflecting the improved underwriting performance.

Strategic and operational initiatives

Delivery of strategic and operational initiatives remains a key priority:

• Continued deployment of pricing models across motor and home, alongside improved risk selection, supporting lower prices for good drivers.
• Improved functionality for the Hastings Direct mobile app, including enhanced digital claims capabilities in particular. The Hastings Direct mobile app remains highly used by customers, with over 1.5 million downloads in 2024.
• Enhancements to make it easy for customers to manage their renewal, including new digital capabilities. 
• Optimised digital journey for new business customers, offering a more seamless journey and reducing the time taken to acquire a new policy. 
• Ongoing investment in customer servicing capabilities driving a further improved net promoter score and consistent reductions in customer complaints of more than 20% vs previous years.
• Development of antifraud models, and continuing to work closely with the Insurance Fraud Bureau, to identify and tackle criminal activity.

Our colleagues and communities

Continued commitment to colleagues and communities:

• Record high colleague engagement scores in 2024, and also named UK’s #1 Best Big Company to Work for 2024 and ranked #1 in the Insurance sector award by Best Companies.
• The Groups highest Graduate and Intern intake as we continue to invest in long term talent at Hastings.
• More colleagues benefitted from development activity and career progression through colleague and leadership development initiatives, record internal promotions and a comprehensive series of internal events to keep colleagues connected with business progress, community and wellbeing activities.
• Over 13,000 colleague community hours and more than £229,000 was raised for local communities through grants and sponsorships and colleague fundraising. Hastings continues to support local schools in Bexhill and Leicester through our educational programme, Futuready.
• Through a proportion of new business sales, insurePink donated £103,310 to the Pink Ribbon Foundation.
• Sustainability targets verified by the Science-Based targets initiative in respect of operational and investment emissions aligning the Groups climate strategy to the Paris Agreement.
• Hastings sustainability programme has delivered an 80% reduction in operational emissions³ through buying energy from renewable sources, secured the planting of over 1,200 trees and established community partnerships with Hastings Kelp project and Groundworks (Coombe Valley Countryside Park).

 

Ends

For more information, please contact pr@hastingsdirect.com.

¹Operating ratio is claims and operational costs over insurance and other revenue.

²Operational profit is profit before tax, excluding the impact of interest rate changes and non-operational amortisation resulting from business combinations.

³Operational emissions include scope 1 & 2 emissions as defined by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.