PENSIONS and insurance heavyweight Aviva, which is a significant employer in Scotland, has seen its savings and retirement business achieve a record performance and notched up its highest general insurance sales for a decade.
The group’s success in the three months to March reflects factors such as the improvement in consumer sentiment in the quarter amid the rollout of coronavirus vaccines, combined with the continued impact of lockdowns.
The group’s core savings and retirement sales increased by 23 per cent annually to £6.2 billion in the first quarter, from £5bn last time, with net inflows of cash up 31% at £3bn.
READ MORE: Edinburgh jobs in focus after sale of historic Standard Life brand
Aviva noted that it won more workplace pensions business while it enjoyed strong in-flows via platforms amid improved retail investor sentiment and the release of pent-up demand.
The company posted a 4% rise in core general insurance gross written premiums to £2 billion in the quarter.
Its combined operating ratio - a measure of underwriting profitability - improved significantly, with a fall to 90.6% from 118.7% a year earlier.
Aviva highlighted “better underwriting performance, benign weather experience, a reduction in Covid-19 related claims compared to the prior year and frequency benefits in motor lines from continuing lockdowns”.
Drivers have been on the road less due to lockdown restrictions and people working from home, though the pandemic has hit car cover premium rates.
The group has also seen sales boosted by the launch of Aviva-branded motor and home products on price comparison websites.
READ MORE: Big vote of confidence in Scotland from pensions giant
Chief executive Amada Blanc has presided over a shake-up at the group since taking over from Falkirk-born Maurice Tulloch, who stepped aside for family health reasons in July after little more than a year in post.
Under her leadership Aviva has sold off a raft of overseas businesses to focus on the UK, Ireland and Canada.
Ms Blanc noted: “We remain sharply focused on further improving performance, recognising we still have much more to do, to deliver stronger returns for our shareholders.”
Aviva employs more than 1,500 people in Scotland. Before the pandemic and the associated move to home working the bulk of them were based in its centres in Bishopbriggs and Perth.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here