Ageas increases protection customers 90% over year

End of year results show Ageas’s protection arm managed a 90% yearly increase in protection customers, resulting in new annual protection premiums up 52.3% to £22.7m.

The results ascribe this increase, to 120,000 customers, to the successful roll out of the company's protection proposition to an increasing number of IFAs. By the end of the fourth quarter of 2010, the business had a 6.4% IFA market share, up from 4.3% in fourth quarter 2009.

However, the business carried a pre-tax loss of £10.2m in 2010, up from £7.2m in 2009. Ageas said this includes a one-off impairment charge of £5.6m related to a commercial partner that has subsequently gone into liquidation.

Barry Smith, Chief Executive of Ageas UK, commented:: "I'm absolutely delighted with the response of the market to our rebrand. Our strong service ethos, which remains very important to us, was again recognised by our brokers, clients and partners through the numerous awards and service accolades presented to us during 2010. This gives us confidence in our business and we are focused on improving performance in 2011."

Ageas Protect's parent, Ageas UK, saw total income up 27.2% on 2009, to £1,035.2m, while non-life gross written premiums were up 25.7% to £1,01bn.

However, including bad weather events and one-off costs resulted in a group loss of £24.8m.

Smith said: "Like the majority of the industry, we have not been immune to the exceptional weather that struck last year and this has adversely impacted our result which is clearly disappointing. We also had significant one-off costs to support our growth. Without these combined costs, our profits would have increased well above 2009 levels"

"The fundamentals of our business are strong and good progress has been made in the delivery of our strategy to increase the breadth of our products through different distribution channels. We delivered record levels of income in 2010 topping the £1 billion mark for the first time, as well as successfully integrating Kwik Fit Insurance Services and launching the Tesco Underwriting business on time and to plan."