Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Admiral Group 2020 Full Year Results presentation. My name is Haley, and I will be the operator for your call this morning. If you would like to ask a question during the question and answer session on today's call, you can do so by pressing Star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand you over to Milena Mondini. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to this second and hopefully last year 2012 edition of our results presentation. A positive set of results, as Geraint, our CFO, will detail later. With continuing growth and strong performance across our business as Cristina, Costantino, and Scott will explain, respectively, for UK Insurance, International Insurance, and Loans.
These results were achieved while focusing on doing the right thing for all our stakeholders, and I will come back to this at the end of the presentation. Many things have changed this year, and to start with, the way in which we communicate. As you will see in some of the cover slides of this presentation, which show pictures of some of the most typical Admiral events, pre- and post-COVID. For me, personally, there was also a major change in role.
I am truly excited to walk in the footsteps of Henry and David, and I'm particularly excited as I'm inheriting an incredibly strong team and a fantastic company and platform for continued future success. And let me remind why I think this is the case by taking a look back over the last decade before talking about 2020 and the decade that is to come.
W hat are the drivers of Admiral success? First of all, there is a track record of delivering superior margin with a Combined Ratio that is substantially better than our competitors. T his is a result of a strong focus on the essentials of insurance, claims, and pricing, with an obsession for continuous improvement, combined with effective distribution, a cost-conscious culture, and a lean operating model.
Second, these competitive advantages and the resulting growth in profits gave us the confidence to almost triple our customer base over the last 10 years. Adding 5 million of new customers, without even accounting for price comparison platform, out of which more than half were in new geography or handling new products. T he investment to develop this new venture was less than 5% of overall group profits.
The secret sauce in this mix is our culture, possibly the most difficult advantage to replicate of all. In every country and throughout the whole organization, there are great teams focused on providing great service to our customers, but also on being great colleague, one for each other. We have been the only business that has been named in the Sunday Times and Great Place to Work list in the U.K. since 2001. Why that's so important?
Because people who like what they do, do it better. Finally, an efficient capital model, as we can leverage on very strong reinsurance agreements that are only possible because of the positive and long track record of underwriting results. This translates into higher return for our shareholders, with an ROE that is consistently over 50%, more than double than comparison.
Now, let's take a look at what happened in 2020. Last year, we delivered positive financial results and growth in UK and overseas, as Cristina and Costantino will explain in more depth later. But what makes me most proud are two things. First, despite all the operational challenges and the many changes caused by COVID disruption, we also managed to make substantial progress on our longer term strategy, as I will explain soon.
Second, in this difficult context, we remain true to our values, which helps us to navigate the unexpected and influence a lot of our choices, and we looked after all our stakeholders. Starting with customers. First of all, we provide continuity of service by moving the majority of our staff to work remotely in just a few weeks.
Second, we gave a refund of GBP 25 per vehicle to 4.4 million customers in U.K. during the first lockdown, in recognition of less driving, and this was followed by substantial discounts thereafter. We supported more than 9,000 key workers by waiving, for example, the excess fees or providing free courtesy vehicles, and we allowed loan payment holidays for those who needed them. T he feedback for this has been overwhelming. Staff safety was our top concern through the year.
We provided flexible working arrangements and implemented many initiatives to support well-being at home of our staff, such as additional holiday days. It has been incredible to see even stronger employee engagement scores despite the context, and we were named fourteenth Great Place to Work in the world. I n truth, we are aware that we work in a sector that has not been as negatively impacted by COVID as many others.
We try to help the less fortunate through the Admiral COVID Fund and many other charity initiatives, such as providing school equipment or donating tablet devices to care homes. We also support our partners, such as repair network in UK or outsourcer in Italy, without forgetting our commitment to the environment. I'm pleased to report that we are now carbon neutral through offsetting, while also continuing to use 100% of renewable energy.
in our UK premises. Last but not least, we delivered good outcomes for our shareholders, with profit exceeding GBP 600 million, driven by prior year reserve releases and decrease in motor claims frequencies. We achieved almost 10% of customer growth, mainly enabled by stronger retention rate across all the businesses.
Finally, I also believe that we are in a strong position to continue to deliver in the long term. If we look ahead, we can envisage more demanding customer, the availability of more data, and also material change in the way people will move around. In this context, our aim is to further diversify our product offering while delivering on customer expectations faster. To ensure that, we will focus on three areas. First, accelerate the evolution of all our core business toward what we call Admiral 2.0.
Admiral that remains true to its historical strength, but which is even more agile, with digital first, embrace smart working, and above all, we aim at keeping improving customer experience, leveraging on data and advanced analytics even more than before. Second, we need to continue our product diversification journey to develop stronger proposition for our customers, but also to increase our engagement and our, and enforce our relationship with them.
How? First, by continuing to support successful or promising businesses such as household or loans in the UK, and then by continuing to explore new opportunities that are adjacent to our core and where we think we can deploy our core strength. Finally, in the longer terms, change in mobility will come with risks and opportunities. It is very early stage now, but we intend to observe, learn, and prepare.
Why 2020 was such a strong year in that respect? It's fair to say that Covid played an important role here, putting additional pressure on our digital agenda, forcing us to move remote working almost overnight, and forcing customers to rethink their mobility and their living habits, as well as also accelerating other pre-existing trends.
In 2020, we doubled the number of machine learning models pushed to production, moved a large part of the business to scale agile, transition the majority of our customer data to the cloud, and materially improve our NPS score in every country. T here is so much more to do.
On the product side, we not only improved household results substantially and strengthened our foundation in loans, as Cristina Nestares will explain later, but we also planted more seeds overseas with the launch of pet insurance in Italy and household insurance under L'olivier brand in France. We also set up Admiral Pioneer, a team for the exploration of new opportunity in the UK.
To clarify, Pioneer is not an investment vehicle or a traditional incubator. Our aim is to continue to do what we have always done in the past, test new ideas, support the promising ones, and kill the others. W e will do so with a more refined approach, which will give us speed from one side and limit the distraction to the core, which remain our priority on the other side.
Finally, just let me bring an example of the exploration within the new insurance model. Veygo is a UK brand for short-term, flexible insurance. It was launched in 2017 and counting 150,000 customers last year. It's small with a turnover of GBP 14 million, but it's growing, and it's an interesting vehicle for us for further test and learn of new mobility trends.
T o conclude, despite the challenging context of a terrible pandemic, we had a good year with good results, we made strategic progress, and we remain true to our values and our culture. N ow to Geraint to share our results more in detail.
Thanks, Milena. Hello, everyone. I'll cover some of the main features of a positive set of results, looking at the top line and, of course, profit. I'll give a quick update on a few pieces of financial news, and I'll finish by looking at our strong solvency position and increased dividend.
First up, these are some of the highlights, and in a year dominated by COVID, the story is positive pretty much across the board. Considering the backdrop, customer growth was especially pleasing at 10%, and turnover was also higher. The profit increase, as you saw earlier, was significant, and our return on capital was in line with 2019 at over 50%. Solvency ratio remains very strong, just under 190%, after taking into account a healthy 12% increase in the full year dividend.
Let's get into some of the details, starting with turnover and customers. As I mentioned, given the backdrop in 2020, which included some sharp decreases in demand for car insurance at times, I think this is a positive set of numbers. Increased competitiveness and very strong retention led to a very decent 9% growth in the UK motor business.
Turnover was only marginally uplift due to the GBP 100 million impact of the Stay at Home Refund and material discounting in the second half. The household business continued its positive momentum, closing in on GBP 200 million of turnover and 1.2 million customers, both up double digits again. Our markets outside the UK were more challenging in volume terms, and so growth was more muted in aggregate compared to recent years. But progress continues.
13% higher customer numbers, 20% of the group's insurance customers are now outside the UK. French growth remains very strong. Positive top line results from the comparison businesses, and as previously flagged, we saw a fall in the net loans balance due to the prudent approach of Scotland team that we'll hear about later.
On now to look at some of the detail behind the big increase in profit. That tends to be the case with our results. Loss ratios are a key driver of profit movements, and that's especially the case with these 2020 results. Group profit was GBP 112 million, or just over 20% higher than 2019, at GBP 638 million.
Remember, though, that 2019 was negatively impacted by an audit discount rate change, which hit the result by nearly GBP 35 million. And so I think of the increase more in the order of GBP 80 million or 15%. Clearly still a positive outcome. The UK insurance result nearly hit GBP 700 million, with the increase predominantly down to two factors.
Firstly, higher investment income, and secondly, despite the stay-at-home refund and the significant discounting, there was a notably lower current year loss ratio, which offset reduced, though still high levels of prior year reserve releases. The household business doubled its profit to around GBP 15 million, also seeing a better current year loss ratio and associated profit commission income. Pleasing results. A lower loss ratio also helped the international insurance segment report its first overall profit and a GBP 10 million improvement from 2019 to 2020.
All the European insurers reported positive results, and there was a lower loss in the US, too. We signaled at the half-year results that we expected a smaller loss from Admiral Loans in the second half, and that's proven to be the case, and we report a loss of just under GBP 14 million for the year.
Scott will share the details shortly, but we end the year with what we believe to be an appropriate provision, and we're well set for 2021 and beyond. Not too much to say on the other costs. There are some non-recurring items in there, such as costs related to the comparison disposal, as well as some of the big projects like IMAP and IFRS 17.
Share scheme costs still a big majority, though, with a slight increase year-over-year, notably due to the higher share price at the end of the year. Moving now to look at the strong solvency position and higher final dividend. This top chart shows the capital position in terms of the requirement, the surplus, and the solvency ratio.
As you see, the ratio is broadly consistent and strong, running at just under 190%. In 2020 versus 2019, higher profitability has led to notably higher capital, but also a larger increase in capital requirement than we usually see, reflecting higher profit commission risk from those higher profits. In absolute terms, the surplus capital level is around GBP 100 million higher year-over-year, even after deducting that final dividend.
Speaking of which, as you can see on the bottom here, the proposed final dividend is GBP 0.86 per share. It's a touch under 90% of the H2 profit, and that's 12% higher than the final dividend from last year, with the deferred part added back, and that's consistent with the H2 profit increase. A 12% increase in the 2020 full year dividend follows 11% increases for the past 3 years.
A few quick updates now on some other topics. Firstly, hopefully it didn't pass you by, but we announced back in December that RVU will acquire most of our comparison businesses, with the exception of Compare.com. It remains subject to approvals, and we expect it to complete in the next couple of months.
The reasons are hopefully well understood, and we firmly believe it's a very good outcome for all parties. We'll confirm the plans for the proceeds after completion, most likely with our interim results announcement in August.
On reinsurance, I expect we'll conclude extensions for the UK business by the end of the first half. No big changes expected there. Just a reminder that we'd expect investment income to come under a bit of pressure in 2021. No major changes to the mix of assets over the last year or to be expected in 2021. Finally, a quick update on our internal model progress.
Following discussions with the regulator in the latter part of 2020 and earlier this year, we've taken some time to review the design of the model, and that will result in a further delay to application, which we now hope to be next year and not in 2021. More news later in the year.
T o wrap up, key messages from my section. In a year totally dominated by COVID, it was pleasing to see continued growth in almost all parts of the group, along with some reductions where we'd want to see them. Profit was significantly higher, with various factors contributing, including lower current year loss ratios in several businesses, and a familiar positive story on solvency and dividend. Over now to Cristina to update us on the U.K. business. Cristina?
Good morning. I'm going to talk in more detail about the results of the U.K. insurance operation. Starting with the highlights, we had good growth in our motor book of 9% as we decreased prices more than the market. We also had good profits, due to reserve releases and the impact of COVID on frequency. A
lso, COVID had a negative impact in our additional income, and we decreased this income due to less claims and a shift to digital. Beyond motor, in our household book, we had good growth both in terms of units and profits, and we experienced a limited loss in our small travel book. For 2021, we expect a higher increase in frequency, which will translate into worse loss ratio. Let's start looking in more detail at prices in the market. It's been dominated by COVID.
In the Q1, we saw some price increases, but then since COVID, we started to see prices in the market decrease. In Admiral, we have done bigger decreases than the market. As you can see in the graph on the top, this is a comparison of the Admiral vs Top 5 Index to 2019. As you can see in the graph, in the last part of 2020, we became much more competitive, and actually, we were 20% more competitive than the previous year.
In terms of retention, similar story. You can see in the graph on the bottom that the Admiral retention has been traditionally higher than the market. But in the past few months, this gap has increased. Two reasons for this.
First, the decrease in our rates, which we have done to pass the savings to the customers, but also an increase in the trust in our brand following the refund. So overall, strong increase in units of 9%. However, turnover only increased by 1%. Why this? Several reasons. First, the rate decreases the rebate, but also a change in the mix of business that we had in the market.
We had less young drivers, less new cars, and finally, a decrease in additional income. Moving on to talk about loss ratio and profits. During 2020, we had a strong profit. Like in previous years, reserve releases are an important part of the profit, and we made a release of 23%, which is in line with our average. Also, we have kept a similar level of conservatism in our reserves.
We also experienced a very good loss ratio in 2020. In the graph on the bottom, you have, you have the difference between the loss ratio in 2019, and the loss ratio in 2020. As you can see, very strong reduction in frequency, which has been partially offset by an increase in severity and a decrease in premium.
Now, let me explain you in more detail what has happened to claims in the market. We've been talking about the reduction in frequency, which was especially strong during the first lockdown, but we also have an increase in severity. Some of these have been caused by pressure on our garages, which has made the length of the repair longer, increasing the cost of repair higher.
Also, in the case of Admiral, we have provided ongoing financial support to garages and also to NHS and emergency workers. On the bottom, you have two graphs that compare Admiral performance to the rest of the market. In the first graph, you can see the average of our claims costs, which are significantly better than the market. A
lso on the graph on the right, you can see a comparison in terms of complaints per claim. I think it's very important to highlight that we managed to have very good claims costs, while also delivering very good service. Moving on to additional income. As you can see in the graph, we can see a reduction of GBP 5 when we compare the second half of 2020 to the year before. Two key reasons that explain this.
First, part of our additional income is made up of income from non-fault claims, so a reduction in frequency has impacted this. Secondly, there has been an acceleration to the shift to digital, which has also impacted additional income. For the future, we expect this revenue to stay flat and not increase to previous levels.
E ven though we expect an increase in frequency, which will increase this revenue, we also feel that the Whiplash Reform will increase the cost of providing motor legal protection by a few GBP. And also, we expect to see a continuation in the shift to digital. In terms of our household results, we have seen 2020 has been a good year for profits and growth. COVID has had an impact on the claims.
We have seen an increase in accidental damage, a decrease in the spend on escape of water, and a reduction in third parties. In terms of growth, we have seen a good rate down to premium reductions that we have made to pass savings to our customers, and also to the continuation of the cross-sell that we do with our multi-cover proposition.
For the future, we expect to continue growing in size and profits, but we also think we will return to more normal levels of growth in profits. Now, before finishing, I would like to talk about our views for the future. For 2021, we expect frequency to increase to more normal levels, which will impact the loss ratio, making it higher than it was in 2020.
We think that the market needs to unwind some of the COVID-driven discounts that were made in the past 12 months. Even though the Whiplash Reform will impact prices, we think it's gonna be a small impact, and that is because the market has already started taking this into account. In the case of Admiral, we have already started unwinding some of the discounts, and we have recently done increases in our rates.
Beyond this, what to expect from the FCA pricing change? Well, it is still early to know exactly what is gonna be the content and the timing of this reform. In any case, we think that Admiral is in a good place, because, first, we have a customer base that is very used to comparing prices every year.
Secondly, we think that after the reform, being a good underwriter is gonna be more important than ever, and that is basically handling claims well and being able to price based on risk. T his plays to Admiral's skills. F inally, we think that at Admiral, we have the capacity to adapt well to changes in the market.
O verall, even though there is a lot of uncertainty, we hope that we will be in a good position. I n summary, 2020 has been a good year for the UK insurance business, good growth and a strong profit. And now I'm gonna pass you to Costi, who will talk more about international insurance.
Thank you, Cristina. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the International Insurance. If you had asked me a year ago, do you think it is possible for International Insurance to achieve a strong result during a global pandemic, with everyone working from home and no face-to-face meeting for over a year, and guaranteeing an excellent customer service? I probably would have said no, and I would have been wrong.
I am pleased with what the team delivered in 2020. An overall strong performance, proving that our business is resilient. We made good progress in the U.S. and delivered another year of sustainable growth in Europe. Let me start with our U.S. business. In the U.S., we consciously prioritize bottom line improvement rather than aiming for top line growth.
2020 has been a year of good progress in the U.S., in particular, in two areas: risk selection and loss ratio improvements and operational efficiencies. I know you might be asking, how can you say that Elephant has improved the loss ratio net of the positive COVID effect? Well, if we take a look at the graph on the bottom left of the slide, it represents the changes in the loss ratio indexed at 100 in Q3 2018.
You can see that Elephant, the blue line, shows a larger improvement than the market, the red ones. In taking the market trend as a proxy of the positive COVID effect on the loss ratio, this implies that Elephant has also improved independently from the lower frequency related to the pandemic. The improvement of the combined ratio over the last few years is a result of a combination of factors.
We have focused on improving technical fundamentals, as well as invested in digital enhancement to strengthen the business. We expect this to continue in the future, although not necessarily at the same pace. In conclusion, good progress in establishing a sustainable loss ratio indexed at 100 in Q3 2018. You can see that Elephant, the blue line, shows a larger improvement than the market, the red ones.
Hence, taking the market trend as a proxy of the positive COVID effect on the loss ratio, this implies that Elephant has also improved independently from the lower frequency related to the pandemic. The improvement of the combined ratio over the last few years is a result of a combination of factors. We have focused on improving technical fundamentals, as well as invested in digital enhancements to strengthen the business.
We expect this to continue in the future, although not necessarily at the same pace. In conclusion, good progress in establishing a sustainable digital insurer in the U.S. Let's now move to Europe. For the first time, all the three European businesses are profitable, and we achieved a record profit on a combined basis, again, driven by our largest operation in Italy, ConTe. The progress of the European insurance is evident also net of COVID, although less strong.
Indeed, while the pandemic has had an obvious positive impact in lowering the claims frequency, it has, at the same time, significantly pressured our volumes and premiums. We estimate that removing the COVID effect, this would still have been a year of growth and profitability, with Admiral Seguros and L'olivier nearly breakeven and ConTe.it largely profitable.
Digging deeper into the top-line figures, there are a couple of additional points I would like to make. L'olivier in France delivered a very strong growth for another year in a row, and we continue to experience austere premium conditions in Italy and Spain, which resulted in a modest growth in turnover, while we achieved a notable growth in the customer base.
Finally, in Europe, we are progressing well in delivering more digital services to our customers through agile operating models that help us in making our customer happier and our business, thus, more efficient. In conclusion, international overall delivered a strong performance, proving that our business is resilient. We made good progress in the U.S. and delivered another year of sustainable growth in Europe. Thanks. Now over to Scott and our loans business.
Thank you, Costi. Good morning, everyone. Today, I would like to share with you how our Admiral Loans business has also proved to be resilient in 2020. Yes, our growth was impacted by COVID, as we took the prudent decision to pause new loan originations for part of the year. Having said that, our customer payment performance has been good, and we've made large provisions for the projected future increase in UK unemployment.
We finish the year optimistic of the near-term future, and we will return to growth in 2021. One of the things that I'm proud of, and that gives me confidence for the future, is that in a true Admiral way, we deliver the right solutions for customers, and they like what we deliver. You see two pictures here.
The first, pre-lockdown in early 2020, is a picture of us celebrating our 100,000th loan customer in the office back in Cardiff. The second is from just last month, when Admiral Loans won Best Lender in both the personal loans and car finance category at the Moneyfacts Awards. These awards are exclusively voted for by customers. A nice way to start the year.
As guideline, we have booked a GBP 13.8 million loss for 2020, which you can see is after a provision charge of GBP 25.8 million. This is GBP 11.5 million higher than 2019 and includes GBP 15 million for loans which remain fully up to date, reflecting the expected increase in UK unemployment. We have a track record of consistently improving actual loss performance, as you see in the chart on the bottom left-hand side.
This shows 12-month customer payment default outcomes for each monthly cohort since our launch in 2017... and it's pleasing to see from industry benchmarking data, we are among the best performers over that period. You can see the actual loss performance has consistently improved during that period, and in 2020 had in fact been in line or better than prior periods.
Also worth highlighting that we finished the year with less than 1% of the book on payment holidays. What this looks like in coverage ratios is an increase from 4.9% at end of 2019 to 10.4% at end of 2020, and importantly, a 3.8 times increase on the provision for performing loans from 1.5% to 5.8%. This reflects the uncertainty in the macro environment.
We started 2020 proving the growth capability of the business by writing record volumes during early Q1. As you can see from the chart on the bottom left-hand side, when the COVID crisis emerged, we responded quickly and paused new business entirely in order to focus our attention on existing customers. We reopened to new business in July, where we chose to take a cautious approach for the rest of H2, and having now evolved our models and underwriting approach, have returned to cautious growth in 2021.
Looking forward, we believe the evolution of the market plays to Admiral's strengths, where we believe key differentiators will be risk selection, product innovation, and a low-cost to serve. Consumer behavior is also changing to be ever more digital, and a wider range of behavioral data is becoming more important to predict how loans will perform in the future.
We also welcome the regulatory direction, noting the recent broad review of the insurance market, which does suggest end time and move to more transparent pricing and products, which aligns with the Admiral Loans aim to provide affordable lending products for mid-range risks via real rate pre-approved offers. In terms of guidance, we expect gross loan balances in the range of GBP 500 million to GBP 550 million by end 2021.
In conclusion, Admiral Loans has also proved to be resilient in 2020, validating the strength of what we have built over the past three years and further convincing us of the opportunity to build a scalable business, making a significant contribution to the Admiral bottom line. We had a rapid response to COVID and paused new loan originations for part of the year, resulting in deferred growth.
We are optimistic for the near-term future, having returned to growth in early 2021. With that, I'll pass back to Milena to wrap up.
Thanks, Scott. One of the collateral effects of a crisis, it is to test what people in business stand for, how their priorities, and the balance between the here and now and the long term change when under pressure. W hat does Admiral stand for?
This came out even more clearly for us this year. We want to ensure that our products deliver good value and are fairly priced, and therefore affordable and inclusive for more people, even when this meant giving back GBP 110 million. We want to help and provide peace of mind for the future, particularly when the future is more uncertain, as it was the case this year. We want to look after more people, particularly when they need it the most.
We're trying to find new ways to do things better every day, little by little, by using more data, testing and learning, always striving for excellence, and we do so together as a team, as is deeply ingrained in our culture. In summary, help more people to look after their future, striving for better together. This is the revised purpose statement of Admiral, and you can read through.
You can read this through a different lens. First, the customer, as we protect what's important to them. Second, our staff, as we empower them to achieve their full potential. And third, the larger community. Not only as we provide great employment opportunity in a company that is a great place to work, but also as we contribute to address broader challenge as, social mobility or climate change. And we want to make a contribution because we care.
It's this alignment of different stakeholders has always been a distinctive feature of Admiral, and it's very ingrained in our model. We do have long-lasting relationship with our partners in distribution, our reinsurers, our customer, who tend to stay longer with us, and our staff, who has an impressive average tenure in the business.
W e manage to do this not only because we really care, but also we take, because we take a long-term perspective in our decision making. S omething that underpins this is our reward system that is based on Admiral shares rather than short-term incentives. All Admiral employee are shareholders. In conclusion, we continue to strengthen the company year after year. Our strong foundation has supported positive results that we have delivered and outcomes for all shareholders.
We made progress in product beyond our core business and beyond UK, and our unique focus on creating long-term, sustainable business is preparing us for tomorrow and beyond. Now, before we close, I would like to take a moment to say a big thank you to David. Thank you, David, on behalf of all Admiral team, for your invaluable contribution to the business and for being such a great reference and fantastic role model for all of us. Thank you very much for your attention, and we are now happy to take questions.
The speakers will move into a live Q&A session with Milena, Geraint, Cristina, Costantino, and Scott. If you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind and wish to remove your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure that your phone is unmuted locally. To confirm, that's star followed by one to ask a question.
In the interest of time, please limit yourself to two questions only. The first telephone question is from the line of Jonathan Denham of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks very much for taking my questions. Firstly, U.K. insurers are going to be impacted by an increase in the corporate tax rate. I was just wondering how much you thought would be passed on to consumers via higher prices? S econd, today's release said you'd confirm your intentions for use of the Penguin Portals proceeds after completion. Just wondering if you still expect to return the majority of the net proceeds to shareholders. Thanks.
Thank you for your question, Jonathan. Geraint, do you want to take these two?
Can do. Hi, Jonathan. On the first one, on the tax increase, I wouldn't expect us to pass that to customers. I think our approach is to pay out most of our net profits to shareholders, and so I'd imagine that the impact might be felt there rather than in pricing. I didn't catch the second part of the question, sorry, could you repeat?
Sure. It was just saying, today, I think you said you'd confirm the intentions for the use of the Penguin Portals proceeds. On the initial release, you said you'd expect to return the majority of the net proceeds to shareholders. I was just checking if there was a change there or if it's still expected to return majority?
No change in that. We'll confirm the plans after completion with the results in August.
Great. Thanks, Geraint.
No problem.
The next question is from Freya Kong of Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. I've got two questions on UK motor. First question is, your reserves are typically set quite prudently because of bodily injury, and they tend to unwind in outer years. Could you help us understand the composition of the 2020 accident year reserves and whether we should expect to see a lower level of unwind in outer years? Second question is, we've seen a lot of positive development on the 2019 book-loss ratio from 92% down to 76%. What's driven this, and will you continue to set loss peaks this conservatively in the future?
Sorry, I was on mute. Thanks a lot for your question. Cristina, do you want to take the second one, and Geraint take the first one?
Yes, thank you. O n the reduction of the loss ratio in 2019, several reasons. The first one is the normal releases that we expect given our conservative approach. S econdly, is that when we look at the 2019, on underwriting year basis, there was a reduction in frequency that affected some of the policies underwriting that year.
On the first part, the 2020 claims cost does have lower levels of large injury claims in it than the previous years. The mix is actually slightly different, and there is actually a slightly bigger share of large injury claims in the total, but the absolute number is clearly smaller with the lower loss ratio.
I n absolute terms, it's probably fair to say that there is less positive development to come out in future years on 2020 accident year, but the approach remains the same. The numbers that you see in the slide will be cautious, and the numbers that we book in the accounts will continue to be cautious. And the relative size of the buffer in the claims reserves is flat year on year.
Great, thanks.
The next question is from the line of James Shuck of Citi. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, everybody. My first question is around the level of conservatism on reserves, and so within that, if I just look at the 2020 margin over best estimate, which I would look at on an underwriting year basis, so I look at the ultimate versus the booked, and it looks like you're booking the loss ratio down nine points above the ultimate for the 2020. In normal years, in 2018 and 2019, that margin over best estimate, about underwriting year, looks like it's normally around 5 points as opposed to nine. So if you just comment on that.
Linked to that, if I look at the booked loss ratio in the accounts, which obviously is a slightly different basis, but it improved by 20 points to 72%. The accident year average that you show, which is on a different basis, but that's improved 11 points. I f you could just help me square that movement as well, that would be helpful. M y second question is around the FCA reform. O bviously there's going to be changes to the pricing of new business. It looks like new business pricing will go up in order to justify the same customer lifetime value.
As those products are introduced into the market, which it looks very much likely that's going to happen in 2022, would you expect a one-off early impact as the new business prices through? And how would you think about the GWP impact as that happens? Thank you.
Thank you very much for your question. Geraint, do you want to take the first one, and Cristina, take over the FCA reform?
Can do. Hi, James. I'll take the second part of the question first, which is about the movement in the booked loss ratio in the accounts versus the ultimate in the slides. What you saw, in the slides is the, the 2019 accident year improved a few points.
I f you, if you look at the original 2019 estimate on an accident year basis, that was 79, actually higher than that, it was in the low 80s. T hat improved something in the order of 15 points, to the first projection of 2020. I think the movement in the, in the booked calendar year loss ratio in the accounts was 14 points. So we'd consider that to be, basically in line.
The first part was about the amount of conservatism that's booked in the current underwriting year. As you say, it is nine points on 2020, booked versus ultimate underwriting. There's no particular reason for it being slightly bigger than in the previous years, and it's been, you know, nine points or actually higher before.
We think of the margin, as I think we've said before, in aggregate across all the underwriting units. You usually see a pattern where the level of conservatism, i.e., the gap in booked versus ultimate loss ratio, will increase as the year becomes less developed, and then that's typically the case. N o particular change. The level of conservatism, i.e., the book loss ratio overall, divided by the best estimate claim reserve overall, is flat year-on-year.
Before we move on, because it's quite a complex topic, so just very quickly, it looks to me like the 2020 book loss ratio in the accounts actually improved by 20 points from 92 down to 72. Obviously, some of that is gonna be frequency driven, but again, I understand that. I understand that the opening has moved down, the explanation you just given, but it still seems a very large movement. M aybe we can take it offline, but unless you can add anything else.
If you look at page 23. I don't know if you've got the accounts release in front of you. If you look at page 23.
We've got a reconciliation there. It shows it's moved from 87 down to 72, which is 15 points, and 1 point is explained by the impact of the Ogden discount rate change last year, so it's next down to 14.
Okay, I was looking at the loss triangles on page 71 of the results, but I’ll circle back later on that. That's fine. Thank you.
A s for the second question, sorry, apologies. Just to answer the second question he asked about the impact of the FCA reform on market prices. I would agree with what you mentioned, that, we expect both for car and for household, an increase in new business prices, basically, right after the FCA reform is implemented, and then a decrease in renewals.
However, it's gonna take some time until, the market adapts all these changes, and we fully understand the dynamics in the market. Just to point out that new business in general tends to be more elastic and renewals more inelastic, and therefore it will take some time, and it will take some changes until, profitability in the market is the same.
You wouldn't expect any earnings impact in 2022, 2023, if the proposals are enacted?
There could be, yes, there could be an impact, especially when the reforms comes live, and we could see an erosion in margin. But I think that it should be temporary, and companies-
Looking this year, and maybe a little bit more detail around what the swing factors could be. A lso related to that, if you'd be prepared to say a little bit more about what you're seeing on motor pricing now in the market, please.
Cristina, I think those are also for you. Yes. Well, first, in terms of severity, we think that the impact on increasing severity of just basically repairing costs is related to COVID and therefore is temporary. So ex-COVID, we don't expect a significant change in the severity trends that we have seen in the past.
However, Whiplash Reform will start impacting claims from or after 31 May , and therefore, that could start impacting severity and frequency of small BI claims. In terms of frequency, it's a bit harder to predict. It really will depend on what is the evolution of COVID and how the lockdown measures evolve.
If we take the current estimations from the English government, they were talking about frequency towards the end of June, as a time where things could start going back to normal. However, the new normal will possibly have lower frequency than we have seen in the past. You also ask about what we're seeing in prices in the market.
As you saw on the graph, we were mentioning that we have seen prices decrease even more in the last quarter of the year. Also, the Confused Index for the month of January said that prices during that month had decreased five points versus December, which is a very strong decrease for a month. In this environment, in Admiral, we have started putting prices up.
We think it's the right thing to do because we expect frequency of the policies that we're selling today to be higher than the policies we were selling before, basically because of the impact of the measures of lockdown easing out. Hard to tell how the rest of the year will evolve, but we think the market will need to unwind some of the discounts that were given in the past 12 months as frequency continues increasing.
Sorry, could I just ask a follow-up on that? Have you seen, in putting up prices, with the market reducing prices, have you seen a material impact to your retention in your new business, please?
It's hard to mention. It's hard to see, because the price increases that we put are very recent.
The next question is from Thomas Bateman of Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, and thank you very much for taking my question. Just the market's clearly a little bit concerned about the discounting that you put through in H2. I guess, what can you say that gives you comfort on these actions?
W e've still got quite a large amount of claims frequency benefit to come through in the first half of this year, but what else would you point to that sort of justify those price decreases? S econdly, you know, Admiral scores quite well on governance and social aspects of ESG, but thinking bigger picture, you know, what are you doing to promote a faster transition to electric vehicles? Can you talk about your EV book at all?
Maybe a slightly radical thought here, but could you envisage a market where you subsidize EVs somewhat from the combustion engine vehicles that you write? Obviously, this would have to be a kind of market-wide reform, but is that something that is being talked about at all?
Thanks a lot, Tom. Cristina, do you want to answer the first one, and I go with the second?
In regards to discounts in the second half of last year, we feel comfortable that that was the right thing to do based on the frequency patterns that we were seeing at the moment, but also the frequency we're seeing now.
T he policies we saw during the second half of last year benefited from the second and the third lockdown, and they are seeing, or basically these policies are experiencing less frequency than before. The second point is severity trends. As I mentioned, there was an increase in claims cost inflation, but that was mainly related to lockdown, and we're seeing those trends unwinding.
The thing that should really give you comfort is that Admiral has been, in the past, very rational, and the fact that we have already started increasing prices is the best signal that we will continue to be rational, and we will continue to price policies adapting to what we see in the market, especially in terms of frequency and severity.
Thank you.
On your second question, Tom, I think, ESG is very important for us. We welcome more attention of the market on this, and we are investing more resource and tuning our plans. On the climate change, more specifically, and the environment, the way we look at this is threefold.
The way we operate, so as I mentioned, very pleased to say that we are now offsetting our carbon emission. Our carbon emission has been verified by the trust, and we're also looking at waste management and using 100% renewable energies and many more things. Also, looking at investment and how we invest in a more sustainable portfolio over time and growing in that regard.
Probably the biggest impact is, as you pointed out, is supporting this change and these trends of electrification, that is gonna be quite massive, expected to be 50% of new vehicles in UK being electric by, in the next 10 years. As we've done for telematics, we intend to embrace these trends and invest resource to make sure that we become a great underwriter for electric vehicles.
I think that's gonna be the biggest impact, and understanding the specificity in terms of claims, understand, you know, how price electric vehicles better, and try to help the customer that deserve to have a cheaper price, and in this way, support the electrification.
There are also other little initiatives that may indirectly support the world with less carbon, like, some initiative around, a product that provide more flexible insurance terms. S ome people maybe decide to not own a car, but rather use it on a temporary basis, and I mentioned vehicles, Veygo, sorry, as an example earlier on.
J ust to mention that also, we do already underwrite a lot of electric vehicles. We have a good share of the market on electric vehicles, and, as I said, looking forward to increase this over time. We will spoke more and speak more about our target and our commitment at half year.
The next question is from Rhea Shah of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Thank you, for taking my questions. Just two from me. F irst, you talk about Admiral 2.0 and also product diversification. Can you provide a bit more color around both of those and any associated investment spend for them? S econd, you're keeping Compare.com in the U.S. What's the long-term plan for this business, and are there any targets that you can give to us?
In your first question, both Admiral 2.0 and product diversification is not something, new, for us. The main message for me today was that we are accelerating on those areas, particularly in Admiral 2.0. 2020 was a very strong year, partially because of, some external factors, that were accelerated by COVID.
It is a, it is a trend in the market, and we are investing more. If you look at our expenses, our expenses in, tech in general have been growing in the last few years. I think now we're at a higher level. We don't expect necessarily additional growth in the future or substantial growth in the future.
What's normally happen is that you increase a bit, the spend in tech and digital, and you may have some other lower expense that are driven by more efficiency as well. N ot necessarily major expectation in terms of the overall spend as a whole. Our priority in terms of Admiral 2.0 is not only the digital, but it's also the data and analytics.
There is so much more data available, and also tools in terms of advanced analytics and methodologies. W e believe there is the potential to do more, and it is, it's gonna be a continuing trend in the next future years. There is also an element of how we operate, so we move to agile and smart working, remote working are also important features of this, of this evolution.
Product diversification is also something that David announced when, when he took over as the Group CEO. He spoke about, an ambition of diversify outside motor insurance and outside insurance as well. If you look at the next five years, probably the existing, business, like loans and household, are the one that are gonna have an impact.
W e, we believe they're gonna contribute positively to our bottom line as well. In the longer term, we hope to, be able to prove our competence also outside those business. Admiral Pioneer, as I mentioned, is just a vehicle that will help us to, to accelerate, this investment and this exploration.
I don't necessarily expect you to believe or to take away that we're gonna massively increase our investment, because we will continue to test and learn, and use a relatively cautious way and approach, as we always done in the past. Your second question was on Compare.
Compare is. We always look at our strategic option, and we evaluate them every year and regularly for all the business. Compare is, it was at an early stage compared to the other price comparison platform. It's also different market, US, that requires more investment, and it's a longer learning curve, the acquisition costs are higher, so it takes a bit more time to mature.
We are, we reduced a lot our investment in Compare and brought, brought it to a level that we feel comfortable and improve a lot of underwriting metrics, so we're pleased with the progress this year, and we remain committed to continue to make a success of it. Having said that, of course, we always reevaluate our options.
Okay.
The next question is from Andreas van Embden of Peel Hunt. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Thank you very much. I've got two questions, one on reserves and one on capital. Starting with reserves, there's still significant reserve releases coming through from sort of the 2015 and prior years, and it's also impacting profit commissions from that period, which is still quite elevated.
How much is left here in sort of the tank on these older sort of vintage years, and what is driving these releases? M y second question is on capital. I'm just curious, what are the key final hurdles you have to sort of take in rolling out your internal model? You know, what is causing the delay, and could you put your finger on the key issue? Thanks.
Geraint, do you want to jump on both?
Will do. Hi, Andreas. On the latter point, on the internal model, it is a bit of a frustration that we are seeing another delay. It's a very tough process. I know, as you I'm sure you know, and everyone who's gone through it will have, I'm sure, experienced a different timeline to the one they originally set out in their plan. We're keen, very keen to get the application right and in a very good standard when it goes in, rather than trying to rush it in, and we think that would probably be counterproductive.
There aren't huge major problems, and there are certainly no concerns, certainly from our side, at least on the numbers that are coming out of it, and the regulator's not indicating they've got any problems with the numbers, per se. I think it's particularly look at the way it's designed, the, particularly the approach to modeling large claims, you know, it's a very important risk for us.
Reserve risk is our, is our biggest risk, and large claims are an important part of that. W e're taking some time to think about that. Nothing to be concerned about from a numbers point of view, like, like I say. We'd expect to get back into the pre-application process, this year and then application next year.
On releases, I think that is a fair point, that it is slightly higher than usual, I think, on 2015 and 2016 at this particular point. We would expect book loss ratios to develop over that kind of time. Four or five years is not unheard of for book loss ratios to get down towards the ultimate level. What you see in the ultimate chart in the slides is that they stop moving at around about that time. T here are a couple of years on the far left-hand side of that chart, where there's been no development in the ultimate.
Once that starts happening, we'd be, you know, expecting to approach the ultimate point, and I'd be surprised to see much development on 2015 and 2016, or 2015 certainly on a booked basis, after 2020, if that helps.
Yes. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
The next question is from Alexander Evans of Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for taking my questions. First one, I'm just thinking about the risk for higher inflation in the market going forward. Does that change your potential view of claims inflation, or do you think current pricing actions are sort of capturing this and you've seen a lot of the movement already? S econdly, just on the outlook of loans, I was wondering what your view on the UK unemployment was after yesterday's announcement and the revised forecast there. Is there a risk that you're too conservative with this year's provisioning?
Thank you. Cristina, do you want to take the first one, and Scott, the second?
Yes. In terms of claims inflation, in general, the market tends to be very quick to adapt, and as you said, they translate this into pricing actions. The more worrying point is when you have a very unexpected increase in inflation, especially for the older claims, because you might end up having to pay a claim, you know, like a large PI claim in a few years, and then a high level of inflation could affect that. But in general, and in terms of the more normal inflation, the market prices.
On loans, Alexander, the main assumption that we took in our provision was that the weighted unemployment would be 9.2. I think that's a key figure.
If you look into the notes, I think we show some sensitivities. T he latest forecast given after yesterday's Budget would indicate that it's nearer to our upturn scenario. It depends on the timing. I think the previous forecast was indicating a peak in the summer, and a peak of around 7.8 from the Bank of England. Latest forecast indicating a peak of around 6.5 in Q4. So there may be implications, but we'll have to wait and see how it plays out.
The next question is from Paul Walsh of Field Gibson Media. Please go ahead.
Good morning. I have two questions from me, please. Firstly, just on a general basis, how have the experiences you've had in 2020 shaped your kind of outlook for the future? S econdly, obviously, it was mentioned during the presentation, concerning the FSA, the FCA's proposals about general insurance pricing on price walking, et cetera. I know that was mentioned in the presentation, but can I just get your thoughts on that and what your kind of general feeling is about those proposals, please? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Paul. Is your question on the outlook of the future of motor insurance or more in general? Can you repeat the first question? Sorry, I think I didn't get it.
Sure. Yes, it's largely in general, just about your sort of past experiences, how they've shaped your outlook, and risk modeling, et cetera.
2020 was definitely not like an ordinary year in terms of, its influence, like COVID impact on results, and COVID impact on motor frequency. I think, in general, we expect a bit of a return to normal in the future. 2021 still will have, a lot of impact from COVID, and so we will see a bit more of what happened in 2020.
The big difference is that the, the premium that were collected towards the end of 2020 and beginning of 2021 will already have embedded a lot of assumption for a reduction in frequency. I f you think about, 2021, probably the underlying underwriting and loss ratio is gonna be, is gonna be, higher, and therefore the margin lower.
Of course, part of our model is also prior year reserve release that also need to be taken into account. In terms of the market, we expect that the other big impact outside COVID is gonna be the FCA pricing reform that Cristina spoke about before. T hat again is something that may be maybe material, but it's gonna take time. It's gonna be an evolution, not a revolution, because a lot of customers have this habit to shop around.
W e'll see some increase of new business price and renewal price, but times and extent is still to be seen. A fter that, in the longer term, I would expect those two things to normalize a bit more, and so probably to come back to what we were experiencing before 2020.
In general, we also see, you know, like digital trend to keep extending and data analytics and a lot of those things also to continue. I think in general, we'll see a bit of a back to normal, but COVID and FCA are definitely two things to take into account.
I think we are in strong position, as I mentioned. We invested or not, we are not only investing in navigating the year now, but a lot in the future. I'm quite excited about the prospect for us also outside UK Motor, in international insurance and household and loans in particular. It was a bit of a high-level view of the future. Happy to follow up if you have more questions.
The second one was on, gosh, remind me, FCA-
FCA
Yes.
Cristina, do you want to take this one?
Yes. I understood the question to be focused about our views on the reform. I wanna start by saying that we welcome this reform, that we understand this is something that wasn't working very well in the market, and we think it will lead to better practices in the future. It's hard to comment exactly because we don't know yet that the content of the reform fully, and when it will be implemented.
O verall, we think it's gonna cause important increases in new business, which certainly will have as a consequence that some customers that are very used to shopping and tend to benefit year after year from reduced prices, are gonna see a significant increase in the prices. T hat will be our biggest concern.
In terms of Admiral, we have a very large renewal book, so of course, this could have a significant impact. We think our customers are very used to shopping around, compare prices on a regular basis and are happy with our level of prices, so we hope to be in a stronger position than some of other players.
Also, as the FCA has mentioned, the household market is gonna be particularly impacted because that's when you see much bigger difference between the older renewal books and the new business. W e expect to see much more changes there, with very high increases in new business and also high decreases at renewal. Overall, wait and see, but it could be an interesting time for Admiral.
The next question is from Philip Ross of Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Just one question from me on solvency, please. On the SCR increase specifically. If you could just expand a little bit on the moving parts. I guess this is mainly driven by the capital add-on. O bviously you mentioned the increased expected impact from profit commissions, but perhaps within that, we might have expected a lower charge for PPOs if they remain less attractive given where rates are. J ust a little bit of extra detail on that would be helpful, please, if you can.
Thanks a lot for the question, Geraint.
You're quite right to say that there's very little change in the, in the element to that capital requirement, which is PPO related. The big increase is, it's profit commission risk, so that's the amount of profit commission risk that would be, de-recognized from capital in a, in the, in the 1-in-200 scenario. In the past couple of years, profitability has increased quite a lot, as we've, as we've talked about in 2020 and 2019, underwriting years, particularly.
W hen loss ratios improve to that extent, there's a lot of profit commission income that we would get. And clearly, early on in those years' development, that's still at risk. T hat's, that's what's driven, the increase we see in, in the 2020 year-end position, versus 2019. Ev ery limited change in, in PPOs.
Big increase in profit commission risk at this particular point. We'd expect that to subside over the next couple of years.
The next question is from Ivan Bokhmat of Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thank you very much. I have a few questions. The first one would be regarding the reserve releases. Just wanted to make sure we're still talking about this midterm 15% to 20% release guidance, I think given some of the changes obviously within that.
M aybe also, if you could talk a little bit of how should we think about the commutation revenues, given 2020 was so unusual, and how will the commutations be booked in the future? The second question, I wanted to ask you about the reinsurance renewals that you mentioned will be completed over the Q2. I'm just wondering if you're looking for any structural changes there, that could affect your levels of retention or the profit commissions you'll get.
Maybe the final question, a rather small one, if I may. We did hear about the success of your refund that has boosted the retention levels. I'm just wondering if you could give a little more color on that. At what level is your retention at the moment in the motor market, and whether that trend has persisted since May? Thank you.
Geraint, I guess the first two are still for you.
I think I might actually get three, actually. I'll try, I'll do three and see what happens. On them... Hi, Ivan. On the, on reserve release outlook, I think it's fair point. We historically said that 15% was the average. That was quite a long-term average.
Over the past four or five years, it's been in the low- to mid-twenties, and in the immediate future, I'd expect that sort of level to repeat. We've still got a conservative reserve, hasn't, which hasn't really changed year on year, so there's, if things develop as we expect them to, there's quite a lot of release to come out. N o real change in the outlook there.
On commutations, the impact this year has been less visible, less material than in previous years because of where we are booking the most recent underwriting years, i.e., at a profitable level. So the impact of commutation on the accounting will really depend on the profitability and the booking of individual years.
Happy to spend a bit more time on that. It's maybe a bit too detailed for the call. And reinsurance renewals, we aren't at this point expecting any structural changes or anything fundamental, I think. W e're hoping to get that done, and probably roll forward in a pretty similar fashion. We'll expect to get that done by the half year.
Cristina, do you want to comment on the impact on retention of the COVID refund and where we stand versus market?
Yes. Well, it's hard to give concrete figures about what was the impact of the refund on retention. What we have is two things. First, clear improved results on our brand tracker. W e, on a regular basis, we survey customers in the UK and ask about several brands and also their level of trust, whether they are.
They will consider them for the future, whether they will choose them, and there is a clear, clear impact of the refund. Secondly, in terms of the impact on retention, what we have is a lot of anecdotal feedback on the website comments and also on the phone, on customers saying, maybe the price is higher than they would like it, but they're comfortable to stay with us because of the refund.
I'm not sure how long this will impact our results, but it's clear that it will stay there for some time as we continue to hear some of this feedback. In terms of actual data on the market, we don't disclose this, but I'm happy to share that in general, and despite our channel being price comparison and our average premium being slightly higher than the market, we tend to have retention that is slightly higher than the overall market. I n the past six months, it's been almost mid-single digit gap.
We will now go to the webcast question. Please go ahead.
Hi there. There are two questions from the web chat. The first one is related to customer growth. The question is: The volume of new customer growth is substantial. Are you comfortable on the infrastructure in place to manage this new volume growth?
Would you be comfortable repeating this growth again in the near term if opportunity arose, or would you be looking to consolidate this level of growth and ensure margin is sufficient? T hat's the growth question. T here's a second question, related to a comment on more insight into household pricing, claims frequency, and claim severity patterns that we've seen and expect to see in 2021.
Cristina, I'll start with the first and then happy for you to chip in and add on top and move to the second. I n general, we, we're happy with the growth. We tend to be very rational in flexing our growth depending on the market condition and also in this particular case, on our expectation of how frequency is gonna change, depending on COVID and what's gonna be the impact of the reform to come with Whiplash and FCA.
We'll take a rational approach to the growth in the future, and we will, and as we've always done. We tend to react relatively early to change in the market and in the external factor, and we'll try to continue to do so.
We'll be seeing, we'll see what competitors will do and what the market will move, but, we tend to optimize our own decision based on our own data point. Our infrastructure is solid for growth. You know, we're, we have very, very solid, infrastructure and operation, and that's true for UK and overseas. W e will, we will take the growth as it comes, if, if what is best for the business. Cristina, I don't know if you want to add anything on top or move to the second part of the question?
Well, just to say, Milena, as you mentioned, that we are comfortable to take growth because we, we understand we operate in a very cyclical business. And if you look at our track record, there have been years where we have grown at a similar level as in 2020, and there have also been years where we have been happy not to grow.
Y es, we operate in that sense. Also, I think the next couple of years could be particularly interesting. We don't know yet, but there might be an opportunity once the FCA reform is implemented and prices in the market go up. W e might need to be ready to take volume very quickly.
Also, I think the fact that we have done a very strong move to digital, and we have a very strong systems and team, makes it easier for us in the future to take more growth. Moving on to the trends in household in terms of claims. Well, in terms of frequency, we saw a reduction in claims frequency in the early lockdown.
A fter the lockdown, it recovered, and it went back to much more normal levels. In terms of severity, what we have seen is basically a change in claims mix. M ore accidental damage, although small. Reduced theft claims, clearly, as people stayed more at home. S everity around escape of water has also been reduced, and we think that might continue in the future.
It's clear that as people are allowed to go out more and to travel, we might see claims going back to previous patterns. W e think some of these changes that COVID has brought in terms of spending more time at home will continue in the future.
O ur expectation for 2021 is similar to 2020, but less strong COVID impact. In terms of weather, 2020 had a bit of a bad weather, especially at the beginning of the year. We had a few storms costing Admiral actually GBP 5 million. T his year, so far, the weather has been quite benign, so that's also important to consider.