Driving for Profit: A view of the UK private and commercial motor insurance markets 2015

In this year’s Driving for Profit, we present the results of our analysis of the performance of the Private and Commercial Motor market in the UK. Starting with UK Private Motor, the overall performance of the market in 2015 has resulted in a pretax net insurance ratio of -0.4%. This ratio has historically been highly distorted by material releases or strengthening of prior years’ reserves held by the Direct Line Group. Excluding the Direct Line Group, the figures indicate that the rest of the market in aggregate is operating at a more pronounced loss with a pretax net insurance ratio of -4.5% in 2015.

Considering only the underwriting performance for the current year, the market operated unprofitably in 2015, with a pretax net insurance ratio of -14.8%, deteriorating from -12.6% in 2014.

The overall gross earned premium decreased marginally in 2015 from £356 to £354. This is third consecutive year-on-year decrease in average gross earned premiums and indicates that average gross earned premiums in 2015 were at much the same level as they were in 2009.