Hastings Group reports strong first quarter results

Hastings Group (‘Hastings’), the technology driven UK insurance provider and subsidiary of the Sampo Group (‘Sampo’), reports today on performance for the 3 months ended 31 March 2024.

Toby van der Meer, Group CEO, commented:

“I’m pleased that Hastings has retained its position as one of the UK’s most competitive motor and home insurance providers in a market which has seen high claims cost inflation, and with consumers having had significant price increases. In this environment, Hastings has continued to attract more customers as well as delivering new digital, pricing and antifraud capabilities, as we invest in building the UK’s leading digital insurance provider. 

Our focus ahead is clear- to help save money for even more households, and deliver great service, especially for customers involved in a claim or accident.

As always, I’d like to thank my colleagues for everything they do for each other and our customers every day.”
 

Financial highlights

Strong performance for the three months ended 31 March 2024, including:

• Gross written premium up 25% year-on-year to £400m, reflecting rate increases and continued growth in live customer policies (LCP). 
• Total LCP increased to 3.5 million policies, up 6% year-on-year. Home, in particular, experienced strong growth, with LCP increasing 27% year-on-year to 571,000.
• The calendar year loss ratio for 31 March 2024 was 64.9%, a 1.2 percentage points improvement year-on-year, reflecting rate increases, a lower risk mix and more benign weather than the prior year. 
• Operational profit before tax (PBT) increased to £32m, with increases in earned premium and retail income being ahead of increases in claims costs.
   

Strategic and operational initiatives

Investments in strategic initiatives continue in 2024:

• New models and data features deployed during Q1 in both motor and home insurance, supporting competitiveness on price comparison websites.
• Continued enhancements to the mobile app, which continues to be highly rated and utilised, with over 350,000 downloads in the first quarter of 2024, up 14% on the first quarter of 2023. 
• Additional functionality for our digital claims hub, which allows customers to record claims digitally and improves 24x7 customer experience when it is most needed, after an accident.
• Further improvements to the YouDrive telematics product, which promotes and encourages safer driving, and continues to experience significant growth.
   

Colleagues and communities

Committed to supporting colleagues and the communities in which Hastings is based:

• Over 1,170 community hours completed by colleagues in local communities and £62,000 donated through community grants, local sponsorships, charitable partnerships and colleague fundraising.
• Continued focus on increasing gender diversity in insurance leadership; building internal and external mentoring through the 30% Club and establishing diverse early career pipelines through graduate programmes and interns.
• Colleague-led Inclusion Council continues to highlight diversity and inclusion events, including International Women’s Day, Neurodiversity Week and the religious festivals of Holi and Ramadan.
• Investment in customer facing leaders, through the launch of a new leadership development programme.
• Wellbeing programme continues to support colleagues through many initiatives, including menopause cafes, men’s health and dedicated financial support for home buyers.
• Time to Talk day 2024 brought colleagues together with local community organisations to discuss mental health and support.
• Certified CarbonNeutral® Company for the fourth year running whilst targets are developed in line with Science Based Target initiative (SBTi) methodology for submission in summer 2024. 
• Fourth sustainability report published, outlining progress made against the Hastings sustainability agenda and the continued support to colleagues, customers and communities. 

   

  Ends

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