Cost of car insurance going up, says Admiral

You may be a safe driver, have no points on your licence and have never had an accident, but the chances are your car insurance still went up by about 12 per cent last year.

And, according to Henry Engelhardt, chief executive of Admiral, the price of insuring the average British vehicle will increase again this year.

“We put through premium hikes of about 12 per cent over 2009, mostly in the second half. It is certain to carry on rising. I can’t say exactly how much — it depends on how much pressure our competitors are under,” Mr Engelhardt said yesterday.

With annual premiums having held steady for the past two years, insurers are facing a rise in claim sizes and cases of fraud. They need to increase premiums to generate profits, he said.

Admiral insures about two million cars in the UK, equivalent to about one in every fourteen policies and a market share of 7 per cent. Admiral also operates the Confused.com “aggregating” website, which pools quotes from a number of insurers. Confused, which offers prices on cover from life policies to household and pet insurance, claims a share of about a third of that market.

The record rise in premiums — Admiral’s rate increases last year were the biggest in a decade — helped the insurer to report a 7 per cent rise in annual pre-tax profits to £215.8 million for the 12 months to December 31. Almost all of that, or £206.9 million, was generated by the British car insurance business, a 15 per cent increase on the previous year.

Annual profits at Confused.com remained at £25.7 million, but Mr Engelhardt said that it had done well to keep its position under an advertising offensive from Gocompare.com and Comparethemarket.com.

Mr Engelhardt said that it would take time for the increase in premiums to filter down into a sharp rise in the rates that consumers pay. That is partly because websites such as Confused.com help to maintain fierce competition. However, the rise will be reflected in next year’s results, he said.

According to the AA, premiums for car insurance rose by 7 per cent during the final three months of last year, the fastest rise since it began compiling records in 1994 — and in a period when insurers traditionally limit price rises. The average annual premium for comprehensive car cover increased over the full year by 18 per cent to more than £1,000, the AA said. It also predicted that car insurance would rise this year.