From This is Money:
RSA, formerly Royal & Sun Alliance, insures 2.6m cars or homes in the UK through More Than and said the increases in premiums had been necessary to help combat the effect of a falling housing market and slow car sales.
It confirmed that motor insurance premiums had risen by an average of 5%, while household cover rose by around 4%.
Business customers were hit even harder with 6% increases to property insurance and a 9% jump in motor cover for firms.
The price hikes could not prevent RSA posting a drop in profits for the six months to June 30. Profits fell by 3% to £1.34bn. The groups Combined Operating Ratio ? an industry measure of claims and costs as a percentage of premiums, where anything below 100% is a profit ? was squeezed to 97.4%, up from 96.2% a year ago, underlying how tight the margains have become for insurers.
An RSA statement to accompany the results said: ‘The UK remains one of our toughest markets and we are maintaining our strategy of targeting profit…
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