Full-year results from insurance giant Aviva on Thursday come after a turbulent year that saw its chief executive ousted and a turnaround plan set in motion.
New boss Mark Wilson unveils his first set of full-year results just two months after joining to replace predecessor Andrew Moss, who quit following a shareholder rebellion over pay and performance last May.
Aviva has undergone a raft of changes, including swingeing cost-cutting and a £1.1 billion deal at the end of last year to quit the US life and pensions market by offloading its American arm, Aviva USA, to major US player Athene.
Restructuring costs contributed to a 10% decline in half-year profits to £935 million, with the figure also dented by lower returns from its pensions and life operations.
Experts predict full-year operating profits will fall 13% to £2bn, excluding its offloaded stake in Amsterdam-listed Delta Lloyd.
The launch of auto-enrolment pension schemes for large companies is expected to have provided a boost to insurer Legal & General when it reports full-year figures on Wednesday.
L&G enjoyed a bumper third quarter as new business leapt 28% to £533m. The boost in the July-to- September quarter came after strong growth in workplace pensions – up by a mammoth 189% to £159m – thanks to auto-enrolment, which came into force for larger UK companies in October 2012.
Sales of protection products were up by nearly a third year-on-year, while individual annuity sales reached a record £35m in the third quarter, up 10% on a year earlier.
Barclays analysts expect L&G's "already attractive" divi to increase by 19% over the full year. The UK's second largest car insurer Admiral, which owns Elephant, Bell and Confused.com, is expected to deliver another hike in profits on Wednesday, up 11% to £331.2m.
That should be good news for staff, who landed a £1500 shares bonus after the group improved profits by 7% in the first half of the year, helped by an 11% rise in the number of vehicles on its books to 3.5 million.
The group has seen claims trends improve since the fourth quarter of 2011 in a welcome respite after it was hit hard by a rising tide of bodily-injury claims.
But Andreas van Embden, analyst at JP Morgan Cazenove, said the company had a higher than average pool of motor risks in the UK that may need to be scaled down in the short term.
He said: "The company has started to grow more selectively and de-risk part of its exposures. This is likely to continue."
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