Admiral Group Aktie

Good morning, everyone, and welcome, and thank you for joining us as we review Admiral 2025 year-end results. Today, we'll be announcing another remarkable year of financial results and strategic progress. So I will start with the key highlights before handing over to Geraint on the financials and to Alistair on U.K. Insurance and Costi on Europe. I will then come back to reflect on what we have achieved over the last 5 years and finally explain how the evolution of our strategy position us to create even more value in the years ahead.

So let's start with the main achievement for 2025. We delivered a record profit of GBP 958 million. This was up 16% year-on-year, reflecting disciplined execution and growth across the group.

2025 also marked exciting progress across data, technology and AI and the evolution of our motor proposition, including the acquisition of Flock subject to regulatory approval. Today, we'll also outline the evolution of our group strategy. This strategy builds on a very strong platform, but more diversified customer base and the competitive advantage we already have to deliver higher long-term value for all our stakeholders. We will also cover our new capital distribution framework, including share buybacks. Geraint will take you through that later.

So more in detail. As already mentioned, 2025 was a year of record. Our customer base increased 7%, while we continue delivering strong customer outcomes with the group Net Promoter Score over 50. Group profit reached a new high, driven by record U.K. Motor profit, passing now the bar of GBP 1 billion, following another record year in 2024. This was achieved in a challenging market environment, thanks to positive evolution of recent years and continued underwriting discipline across the cycle.

Importantly, this was not just a U.K. Motor story. All parts of the group contributed. In the U.K., Other Personal Lines, Admiral Money combined delivered a profit of GBP 88 million. Europe also performed strongly with a fast return to profitability in Italy and great results in France, which Costi will cover shortly.

2025 was also a year of strong shareholder returns, supported by a 7% increase in dividend per share, a very strong capital position with a solvency ratio of 193% and another stellar return on equity of 53%.

Beyond the financial results, 2025 marked an acceleration in our strategic progress. We are pleased with our rapid advancement on artificial intelligence, particularly with the value delivered by machine learning models and the new gen AI center of excellence to scale priority use case, train our people and provide them with the right tools. We are managing more than 150 gen AI initiatives across the group, including support to over 4,000 colleagues, some agentic models with promising initial results and more potential to come.

Selling more product to our existing customers remains a key growth driver with our multi-risk customers now exceeding GBP 1.6 million. Across Europe, we continue to evolve our broker propositions with stronger segmentation and more customized offering, driving better margin, as Costi will explain later.

We also continue to innovate in Motor. An example is our partnership with Octopus that positions us well in the fast-growing salary-sacrifice scheme for electric vehicles with a tailored risk-based proposition aligned with our ambition to support customers in making greener choices.

And in Admiral Money, completing our first forward flow deal was an important milestone as it opened up a more capital-efficient growth path and support higher returns and lower volatility.

On M&A, the integration of More Than is now fully completed and contributed positively. Elephant disposal is also completed. And finally, early this year, we announced our intention to acquire Flock, a company we had invested in since 2024. Flock offers a telemetry-based fleet proposition with an effective feedback loop to improve safety and performance. It's an excellent strategic fit with our U.K. Motor expertise with promising underwriting and claim synergies and it's closely aligned with our joint ambition to improve safety on the roads. And by combining Admiral data ambition to Admiral's strength with Flock technology, we see an opportunity to develop a differentiated fleet business in an underserved market.

So in summary, 2025 was a record year for Admiral with strong profits, customer growth and progress in technology and strategy. Now before handing over to Geraint, I want to take a moment because this will be the last time that you joined me on stage to present results. And I think it's fair to say that the strength and discipline of the performance for about 2 years are a good reflection of his leadership, his judgment and his consistency over the last 12 years as CFO, a period during which Admiral tripled its turnover and grew profit from GBP 350 million to almost GBP 1 billion. And please join me to congratulate Rachel who is here with us today and will succeed to Geraint, bringing deep knowledge of Admiral, a strong track record within the group and a great skill set for the role. So thank you, Geraint, and congratulations, Rachel.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. 12 years of not being conduct. One last time, let me talk you through the main drivers of an excellent 2025 result. Lots of positives, lots of good milestones. I'll cover the U.K. Motor loss ratios, the dividend, strong capital position. And as Milena mentioned, I'll talk you through the change in the approach to capital return that we've announced today.

To start with though, let's look at the component parts of the group profits and the main ratios. The group combined ratio was very positive again at 80%. That was 3 points higher than 2024, though the impact of Ogden accounted for around 2 points of that difference. So in reality, only a very small change. And that, in turn, has made up of a slightly improved expense ratio and a slightly higher loss ratio. The latter as expected, due to the higher loss ratio 2025, underwriting year in the U.K. Motor having an impact.

On to the results then. In U.K. Insurance, overall profit was GBP 1.1 billion. That's GBP 110 million higher than 2024, including Ogden, or GBP 180 million higher if Ogden is excluded, very big increase. The U.K. Motor results, I'll cover shortly, but the result there was a record profit, just over GBP 1 billion. And we're very pleased with a really strong year for the U.K. Other Personal Lines, Home insurance, Travel and Pet insurance, all profitable, strong growth. And the combined profit there was GBP 62 million, was nearly triple of 2024's result.

In Europe, we're reporting a much better results, improving by nearly GBP 30 million versus 2024. We see growth in higher profits in France, small loss in Spain, impacted by new reinsurance arrangements and a recovery to profit in Italy. Good to see that happen so swiftly. And worth reminding that we continue to hold prudent booked reserves in Europe in the upper end of our range and the best estimates are also conservative.

Admiral Money had a great year. Profit was double 2024's, benefiting firstly from good growth in the balance sheet. But also, as we talked about at the 2025 half year from profit generated from selling some back book loans in the first half and selling newly originated loans, which don't hit Admiral's balance sheet. That will be a continuing, we think, attractive feature of the Admiral Money business model.

We continue to see good margins on the unsecured loans business, which makes up the big majority of the balances, but the results from car finance, which was relaunched in late 2024, are also encouraging.

Credit loss experience remains very solid, and we hold an appropriately prudent provision for losses. There are some other comments on the page, which cover the movement in the share scheme costs and the other line, and you've got the usual extra information in the back of the pack. All in all, group profit was up 16% or 28% if you exclude the impact of Ogden on both years.

Let's take a look at the very impressive U.K. Motor results. So this is a summarized income statement plus some of the key ratios and some commentary. Both years include the impact of the Ogden discount rate change. And so some of those year-on-year comparisons, you see look a little less stronger than they really are. We show the pounds and the percentage impact of Ogden in the table and starting with the top line. Customer numbers increased by 2% year-on-year, 50,000 added in the first half and around 80,000 in the second half, so 1% increases half-on-half. As Alistair will talk a bit more about later, we reduced our prices in H1 last year, and hence, average premiums have fallen. And so despite our bigger portfolio, turnover was down by 7% as the team took a disciplined approach in the competitive U.K. market and reflecting the claims trends that we were seeing.

As a result of the reduced premiums and continued claims inflation, the current year loss ratio for '25 is 3 points higher than '24. And of course, we also don't see quite the same positive impact of Ogden in '25 than we did last year. And those 2 items are the main drivers of the higher combined ratio you see at the bottom, which is as we expected.

The underwriting results improved by around GBP 40 million with higher earned premiums and a much lower reinsurance charge offsetting the higher net claims cost. You'll remember that we had much more limited quota share recovery assets coming into 2025, and we see a similar picture as we exit 2025 too.

Net investment income was higher, up to a record level due mainly to higher invested assets at a similar rate of return. Profit commission was notably higher as we started now to recognize income on the high profitability 2024 underwriting year, though we still haven't yet recognized income on '21 to '23 or on 2025. We do expect to see revenue coming through on '21 and '25 very soon. I already mentioned the main drivers of the higher combined ratio we see at the bottom. But within that mix, reserve releases were 10% year-on-year, basically the same like-for-like.

Next up, we'll take a quick look at the main U.K. Motor loss ratios, which, as always, are a key driver of this result. The chart shows the U.K. Motor discounted book loss ratios and there are generally positive and consistent messages to report here. We can see -- we see continued strong improvements in '23 and especially on '24 over the last year. 2024 is clearly a very good margin year on a very large premium base.

In 2025, we see burn cost inflation around mid-single digits level and that's a small improvement in H2 versus where we saw things at the half year point. The first discounted booked loss ratio for '25 is at 78%. That's 7 points up versus '24 at its equivalent point. And that's again basically in line with our expectation. On an undiscounted basis, 2025 is 85% compared to 77% for '24.

Now we expect '25 will be a good profitable year. You can see it looks healthy on the chart at the 12-month point, and it should develop positively from here, though obviously won't end as profitably as 2024. We maintained very high reserve strength. It's very close to the maximum percentile, and we expect that will reduce a bit further in 2026 towards the middle of our range. Overall, on claims, positive experience in line with our expectations, usual trends and there's more information in the back of the document.

Moving now to look at the capital position. So this is the bridge of the solvency ratio from half year to full year '25. There's a couple of observations. Firstly, the capital generation in the second half is largely offset by the final dividend. And secondly, due mainly to pretty flat revenue in '25 versus '24, we see a much smaller change in the capital requirement in '25 than we did in '24 and particularly in the second half. And then the change in the capital requirements and the other items in the middle almost cancel each other out, leaving the group with a healthy -- very healthy, almost flat ratio of 193%.

Short update on the internal model. Lots of hard work by our team, as usual, over the past few months since we last updated you. We now expect to make our application for approval shortly. Post approval, we'll target solvency coverage in the 150% to 170% range, probably at the upper end, in part to give us flexibility for smaller M&A opportunities. We'll give more information on the post-model approval capital position at the appropriate time.

Speaking of M&A briefly, Milena mentioned earlier, the Flock acquisition. As we said in the press release, if that gets regulatory approval and completes in the second quarter, we estimate the impact on solvency will be a bit less than 10 percentage points and is, therefore, largely absorbed by the strong position.

Next up is the dividend. So these are the details of the dividends, split between interim and final. And for 2024, we call out the impact of the Ogden change, which was obviously significant on the dividend for last year. The proposed final dividend is 90p per share. That brings the total for the year to 205p, over GBP 620 million, and that's 7% higher than 2024.

The difference in the payout ratios year-on-year is due to us starting to use capital to purchase shares for the share schemes, which we said back in August would start in the second half of '25. You'll remember that historically, we issued new shares each year for those share schemes rather than purchased in the market, but we haven't done that since 2023. In the fourth quarter last year, the trust bought about 1 million shares for just over GBP 30 million. And the capital that we use for dividend and the share scheme purchases equated to basically the same percentage of earnings across both years, close to the 90% level. And in 2026, we expect the trust will buy around 3 million shares.

Next up, we'll cover the change in the capital return approach. On the left, we show a summary of our capital allocation framework. Milena will talk a bit more about Point 1 later, which covers how we allocate capital to our businesses. And we're generally comfortable that around 10% of earnings is a fair guide of what we need to retain to fund and invest in growth. And that's meant an average dividend payout over the last 5 or 6 years of 90%.

Step 2, we know the importance of strong cash returns to our shareholders. So the ordinary dividend remains at 65% of earnings.

Step 3, as just mentioned, we purchased shares for the share plans.

And final -- and Step 4, not finally, using some surplus capital is an option for funding M&A. And then that leaves the surplus capital and that's what's changing today. Historically, as you know, we've returned this to shareholders in the form of special dividends. But from the interim 2026 dividend, we'll change that Step 5 to be either buyback and cancel shares or pay a special dividend depending on what the Board believes is the best option. For 2026, subject to regulatory approval, we expect to buy shares at the interim and final dividend dates. The 90% guidance we've given out over the past few years to cover the ordinary plus the special or buyback plus the share schemes purchase should generally hold moving forward.

And then one final slide for me to sum up. Looking back on 2025, clearly, it was a really strong year, record profits, record returns to shareholders, lots of positive results and developments across the group. For U.K., the Personal Lines and Admiral Money, great results, strong and swift turnaround in Europe, progress on the internal model, very pleasing stuff.

And looking ahead, a few comments on what we might expect in 2026. On growth, in summary, we plan to grow everywhere. That's obviously subject to how the markets develop, in particular, when prices in U.K. Motor start to increase. For turnover, I'd expect a bit more growth in '26 than we saw in '25. And in general, of course, we expect faster growth from the newer businesses, U.K., the Personal Lines, Admiral Money and Europe.

And then a few comments in respect to the group profit. Firstly, obviously, we will see more of an impact of the less profitable '25 underwriting year feeding into the 2026 results, but we will still benefit from good releases and profit commission coming through on 2024 and '23 and some of the earlier years too.

Secondly, we project continued improvements in the results in aggregate for the newer businesses that we talked about.

And finally, we expect group profit in '26 to be quite flat versus '25 after a really very strong last couple of years where profits have more than doubled. And all those comments, of course, subject to the usual caveats on markets, geopolitics, war and weather.

That's it from me. I will hand you to Alistair now to talk to us about U.K. Insurance.

Thank you, Geraint. Good morning. I'm very pleased to take you through an excellent set of U.K. Insurance results. 2025 has been a record year across all our lines of business, underpinned by disciplined execution, customer centricity and strong operational delivery.

Starting with the headlines. Customer numbers reached 9.6 million, up 9% year-on-year, with strong contributions from Motor, Household, Travel and Pet. We delivered GBP 5 billion of turnover and GBP 1.1 billion of profit, passing the GBP 1 billion profit milestone for the first time. We continue to deliver competitive prices, great service and good customer outcomes, which is recognized in customer feedback. We remain #1 in Trustpilot and achieve an NPS over 55.

Importantly, 1.6 million customers now hold 2 or more products with us, a 14% increase year-on-year. Customers buying more products gives us better data to improve risk selection for all products. is a driver of our retention advantage in Motor and growth in new lines of business. Overall, an efficient source of growth that contributes to improved expense ratios.

Recent announcements are leading to a more predictable regulatory landscape. Outcomes from the Motor insurance task force and premium finance review were in line with expectations, and the Home and Travel claims handling review is now complete, and we have no significant concerns.

Let's turn to the Motor market. Starting with claims trends, frequency was largely flat following the marked decline we saw in 2024, and severity has returned to more normal mid-single-digit levels. Our expectation is that these trends continue, but the current macro environment introduces some uncertainty.

The graph on the left shows a dark line for claims burn costs. Claims burn costs increased steeply through 2022 and then continue to increase but more modestly. The light line for market average premiums shows a lagging response to claims costs, increasing rapidly in 2023, outpacing claims costs and then declining. Both lines are indexed to 2021, and you see they cross in 2025 as increases in claims costs now exceed increases in premiums over the period.

Let's focus on recent market prices. On the right, you see prices continue to decline through the second half of 2025, though at a slower rate than in the first half. We estimate average premiums declined by around 10% in 2025, broadly in line with movements reflected in ABI data.

Since the start of '26, market prices are relatively flat with some differences in strategy between market participants. Market prices need to increase imminently. EY forecasts a Motor market combined ratio of 111% for 2026. This is on an earned basis, and EY assumed price increases through 2026. So delays in market price increases will put more pressure on this 2026 market combined ratio.

Turning to Admiral U.K. Motor. In 2025, we focused on disciplined cycle management and maintaining our strong advantage in pricing, claims and customer retention. In 2025, we reduced rates by around half as much as the market. All the decreases were in H1. In H2, our prices were broadly flat. The left-hand graph shows that this led to a decline in new business market share in the second half of '25.

Lower new business was more than offset by strong retention, resulting in modest policy growth, though lower average premiums resulted in a drop in turnover. In '26, we started increasing premiums with low single-digit increases at the start of the year to reflect the claims outlook and maintain good written margins.

Taking a longer view, our disciplined approach results in varying growth through the cycle, but maximizes value and growth over the medium term. The graph on the right shows our year-on-year vehicle growth rate in blue, in yellow is our written loss ratio. Our loss ratio is consistently better than the market, but still fluctuates within a range due to the cycle.

We respond quickly to claims trends, even if it results in slower growth in the short term. It then enables us to grow quickly when loss ratios are low, for example, by 15% in 2024. Since the start of 2020, our vehicles covered has grown at a CAGR of 5% and with an average combined ratio advantage of around 20% versus the market.

We continue to invest in strengthening our pricing, claims and claims capabilities, including embracing predictive AI and gen AI, which Milena will talk more about.

Electric vehicles is a great example of our pricing and claims focus. We lead in this growing segment. We're very competitive whilst delivering comparable loss ratios to high levels of reparability. Our overall approach is to be disciplined and grow when the time is right, whilst focusing on driving advantage in pricing, claims and customer retention. We're confident this will result in growth and maximizing value over the medium term.

Let's move to our other U.K. Insurance lines where we've had an outstanding year. We welcomed 650,000 new customers, year-on-year growth of 21% and tripled profits across Household, Travel and Pet. In Household, market premiums softened further and subsidence claims were elevated in the second half of the year. Our own pricing remained more disciplined than the market and weather-adjusted loss ratios improved by about 2 percentage points. This, combined with top line growth meant that although prior year reserve releases normalize from the 2024 exceptional levels, we still delivered a record Household profit.

The More Than integration is complete with around 380,000 Home and Pet customers transferred successfully. This has accelerated growth and enhanced capability, particularly in Pet.

Travel grew customers by 29% and continued its positive profit trajectory. Pet grew even faster and reached breakeven just 3 years after launch. All 3 lines are now profitable with clear momentum and strong positions across their markets. So -- I'm going on too fast. So in summary, in 2025, we've delivered record profits. But in addition, Motor remains disciplined and well positioned ahead of the market. Pricing increases expected in 2026. Household, Travel and Pet are performing extremely well with growing scale and margin and customer satisfaction and retention are excellent with more customers choosing to buy more products from us.

We enter 2026 with confidence that we'll continue to deliver sustainable profitable growth over the medium term. Milena will talk more about this shortly.

Now I'll hand over to Costi for Europe.

Thank you, Al, and good morning, everyone. For our European operations, 2025 has been a year of consolidation. We have directed our efforts towards strengthening the operational core across our 3 markets, focusing on the fundamentals of discipline and optimization. It has been a positive period where we have made good progress on our strategy, providing a positive contribution to the group's ongoing diversification efforts.

Moving to the financial results. The headline for the year is a return to combined profitability across the region. The business delivered GBP 39 million Motor profit on a wall account basis, of which GBP 11 million is the Admiral's share.

Going back to the business performance, we closed 2025 with a good combined ratio of 94%. While this represents a significant year-on-year improvement of over 10 points, it is important to look at the individual market dynamics.

In Italy, with ConTe, we have reached a small profit which is a GBP 30 million recovery from the previous year. This significant recovery was driven by strong actions taken on the expenses and a deliberate and disciplined pruning of the portfolio. We made the conscious decision to prioritize technical margins over volumes, leading to an expected vehicle in force reduction. With the business now on a more stable footing, we are in a position to look towards growth, always keeping the focus on its underwriting quality.

Moving to Spain, where Admiral Seguros' reported results includes about GBP 8 million of one-off accounting impact related to a change in the reinsurance structure. Going forward, we have established new multiyear and large reinsurance arrangements at the European level with our historical partners. Effective from 2026, these agreements aim to improve capital efficiency and provide greater stability to our results. Excluding this specific item, the Spanish business is nearly breakeven. This is supported by the direct business, which provides a positive contribution to the results. While our diversification initiatives with ING Bank and brokers are showing very encouraging improvements while scaling up.

Closing with France, where L'olivier has had a very strong year. We achieved double-digit growth in both turnover and profit with results reaching GBP 16 million profit and we surpassed 0.5 million customers. This performance demonstrates that L'olivier is successfully applying the Admiral model, maintaining a strong combined ratio advantage versus the market while driving growth through digital channels.

Let's move to review our strategic progress, starting from the shift in distribution. We have focused heavily on our new brokers proposition in Italy and Spain. As the business mix indicates, we have moved away from an initial test and learn proposition towards this new one, which focuses on building long-term relationships with the intermediaries and also targets better risk segments and higher-margin business in line with our expectations. The early metrics from this shift are positive and provide a solid foundation. We are seeing solid improvement compared to our order book across all the key metrics like higher income per policy, lower frequency and lower cost per claim. And these improved fundamentals have contributed to a 9-point reduction in the overall loss ratio.

While there is still more work to do, we expect these benefits to continue as more growth will come and the new proposition mature. In France, we are continuing to diversify through our household insurance product. We now cover over 100,000 risks, a 25% increase versus last year, which provides a meaningful second pillar to our French operation.

Regarding efficiency, we have managed to steadily reduce the European motor expense ratio by 7 points since 2022. This has been a necessary step to remain competitive. And even in Italy, despite the reduction in turnover, we improved the expense ratio by 1 point through automation and more streamlined digital customer experience.

These operational improvements are also supported by our new common data platform, which is now operational across the 3 countries. This asset allows us to deploy data futures and machine learning models across border with greater technical agility and quality, which is essential for maintaining our edge in a rapidly evolving market.

To wrap up, we're very pleased by the progress made this year. Our European operations have reached combined profitability, giving us confidence in their future contribution to group's broader diversification strategy. Our objective moving forward is to leverage this stability to increase our scale and enhance our earnings. We have the right expertise, a solid data and technological framework and a disciplined path ahead.

Thank you. I'll now hand over to Milena to talk more about the group strategy.

Thank you, Costi. So as you just heard, 2025 was an excellent year across the group. Now I would like to take a moment and step back with you and see what we have accomplished over the last 5 years.

In 2020, we announced our 5-year group strategy based on 3 pillars: business diversification, Admiral 2.0 and Motor evolution. And today, we're extremely proud of what we achieved in this time frame. First, remarkable growth with turnover up nearly 90% and group risk and profit almost 60%. We returned overall GBP 3.2 billion to our shareholders.

Second, we diversified the group with more than 50% of customers now coming from other lines of business or geographies and contributing close to GBP 100 million of profit. In addition, we developed new business such as Pet insurance in the U.K., Commercial insurance in the U.K. also, Household insurance in France and we extend our addressable target market with U.K. Commercial Insurance as just mentioned in B2B2C, in B2B and B2B2C in Europe by opening up the broker distribution channel.

Third, we refocus our portfolio. We exit all of our price comparison sites and the U.S. insurance business to concentrate on the growth great opportunities we have in U.K. and in Continental Europe. The acquisition of More Than and of Flock are instrumental to strengthen our product diversification in the U.K.

Fourth, we overachieved our Admiral 2.0 ambition. With cloud migration, new data platform, tech stack renewal, hybrid working, scaled agile delivery, predictive AI excellence at scale and the announcement of our multiproduct offer.

Fifth, we made further progress in our Motor proposition, including market leadership in EV, as Alistair mentioned, growing telematic product, fast-growing subscription model and short-term insurance with our brand for the youngest Veygo.

Last but most important, throughout this period, we maintained our historical and quite unique strength. More than 20-point combined ratio advantage versus market in our core business, a unique 30-point delta return on equity versus market, a group NPS above 50 and the legendary Great Place to Work status.

So back to nowadays where this leave us. Our current market presents very significant growth opportunities. They are large, attractive, growing with a combined size of around GBP 130 billion. And today, our market share across many of these markets remains relatively modest, and this leaves us substantial headroom to grow. We're continuing evolving our offering to unlock further opportunity in lending with the first forward flow deal and a new car finance product in Europe, extending our distribution and product lines.

Commercial Insurance and SME are also good opportunity to provide strong proposition to a large underserved market, experiencing similar trends to Personal Lines 20 years ago with more digitalization, pricing sophistication and automation, where we can deploy our competitive advantage.

Organic growth in all these segments will be driven by market-leading expertise in price comparison site and digital distribution, channels that are growing faster than the rest of the market. Cross-selling and higher retention and increasing economies of scale; and fourth, automation and synergies across the group. Our plan is based on organic growth, but we will consider opportunities for selective accretive acquisitions to accelerate diversification. Importantly, the diversification also reduced over time our exposure to any single market cycle, making Admiral more resilient in time.

So having delivered on our strategy, we now look forward starting with the market context that is fast evolving, but also presenting very interesting opportunities and tailwinds. The U.K. market cycle in Motor is expected to turn and the regulatory environment is expected to be more predictable as Alistair commented before. Market consolidation could create more rational dynamics overall.

More importantly, the rapid evolution of AI and gen AI represents a major opportunity for us. Predictive AI is becoming the key driver of underwriting differentiation. And we already have 12 points of loss ratio advantage versus market and this is a big driver of it. Gen AI and automation offer efficiency potential of up to 30% in the long term for customer service area and may also disrupt distribution and proposition in the long run. What is interesting to us is also the potential to accelerate the transition to direct distribution in markets where direct has more room to grow.

Another major trend is the advancement of car technology, another key pillar of our strategy since 2020 Motor evolution. In the short to medium term, the most impactful change will be the shift to electric vehicles, expected to reach around 80% of new car sales by 2030, where we already have underwriting and market share leadership, as Alistair commented before. This is followed by an increased penetration of advanced safety systems. These technologies have a positive impact on collision frequency, but this has been so far more than offset by an increase in severity.

As for EV, our scale and sophisticated prices approach results in a competitive advantage. In the long run, we expect autonomous vehicles, now in their infancy, to grow in share and reach a point where frequency decrease will not be anymore offset by severity. For this to happen, we need to see technology, customer appetite, regulation, infrastructure, all to further develop across countries. It will take anyhow long time to scale with higher level autonomy expected to represent around 4% of the car park by 2035, and the overall market premiums expected to be continuing to grow for at least 20 years, supported by number of cars on the road and the mix.

We remain very close to this evolution, having, for example, underwritten Wayve, an autonomous vehicles player in the U.K. since 2018.

As AI and mobility trends evolve, our view is that the key winning factor will remain sophisticated data-driven decision-making, scale and a lot of good quality data at scale, an entrepreneurial mindset consistently looking for opportunity to innovate and cost efficiency. And those are all areas where Admiral has a structural advantage, including 8-point expense ratio delta versus market. So overall, we are strongly positioned to leverage those key trends.

Now let me introduce our evolved strategy framework. First of all, this is not a discontinuity in our strategy. It's an inflection point where we start compounding what we have already built, a more diversified business, stronger platforms and proven competitive advantage. The focus is now making those trends to reinforce each other and more deliberately over time. I think about this strategy with a set of reinforcing layers, each layer supports the next and within each layer, the benefit compound as the business grows.

The other layer of our strategy is where we compound performance. Our first pillar is scaled selectively and profitably. And this is about translating diversification into sustainable growth and accelerate margin in our newer lines of business as they mature. The middle layer is where we compound capabilities.

Our second pillar is future-proof our competitive advantage and it is about leveraging on the strong capability we have built in data and technology and the multiproduct benefits to improve customer lifetime value and our structural edge. At the core, at the center, we are compounding our foundations.

Our third pillar is amplify the Admiral DNA, and this is to ensure that our culture, our talent, the innovation and the impact continue to evolve, providing stability and long-term direction and resilience as we grow. So the pillars are interconnected. Stronger foundation are a driver of stronger capability and in turn, these are enabler of stronger performance.

Let me now walk you through each of these pillars in more detail and explain what we intend to prioritize and what we aim to deliver for each. So first pillar, scaling selectively and profitably. We have a clear ambition to continue to scale all our business while increasing margins in our newer lines. In U.K. Motor, we'll continue to grow as we have done in every cycle since Admiral was founded with discipline and at the right time, as Alistair illustrated earlier. We'll continue to invest to maintain our market-leading margins.

In other lines of business, U.K. Personal Lines, Admiral Money and Europe, we will continue to grow and at a faster pace of Motor on average, generating greater economy of scale and higher margins. A key focus will be transferring our underwriting and claims trends from U.K. Motor into other products and geography as well as creating more cost synergies across the group and leverage the benefit of multi-risk ownership.

Overall, we expect to deliver strong revenue growth everywhere, including reaching top 3 position in Other Insurance Personal Lines in the U.K. and substantially higher margin for those business combined, more than doubling profit by 2028 and more profitable growth thereafter. Finally, we will continue to develop our new and still small U.K. Commercial Insurance business, building a stronger SME proposition and growing commercial motor starting with the integration of Flock.

Now let's move to the capabilities that are the key enabler of the growth ambition that we just discussed. It's a virtuous circle that starts from our structural strength in data, customer focus and speed with the objective to increase customer lifetime value. And with higher customer lifetime value, we create optionality, the flexibility to reinvest in these capabilities or to invest and grow or to retain margins.

On the left side of the slide, we see how this focus translate into better underwriting results and efficiency. We'll continue to extend our advanced predictive AI capability, increasing both the quality and the velocity of pricing across all the lines of business and geography beyond motor. We'll also increasingly leverage on connected vehicle data and predictive AI beyond underwriting into customer-based management. This model -- this predictive AI model already delivered over GBP 100 million of incremental loss ratio value, and we expect this to continue over time.

At the same time, we see good potential from generative AI to improve customer engagement, to increase productivity in technology and service area, and in particular, to improve speed of settlement that is great for customer and in addition, correlates with lower cost of claims. It's a win-win. Combined with further automation and continued cost discipline, we expect more than GBP 100 million of annual efficiency benefit by 2028. That as I said before, we may decide to reinvest in existing capability.

On the right side of the slide, we look at our customers. We are strengthening a mobile-first digital end-to-end experience, multiproduct ownership and retention, which is already above market and will further benefit from multiproduct customers retaining around 5 points better than the rest.

Lower expense ratio, higher retention and multiproduct ownership are key driver of higher customer lifetime value. As mentioned, this creates optionality, but also a more resilience to long-term market trends, margin pressures and volatility. So moving to the third pillar, amplifying Admiral DNA. This is what makes Admiral Admiral and different. It's our culture, it's our approach and it's something we are deeply proud of.

As the environment evolves, we are focused on ensuring that our DNA evolves too, starting with our people through reskilling, developing internal talent and strengthening diversity and mobility across the group. We had this year so many examples of senior leader moving across different area and geography, including the new CEO of Veygo and new Head of Claims, new Group Data Officer, new Head of Data and Tech in Europe. And this internal mobility allow us to get different perspective and cross-fertilization from one side, but also continuity and cultural fit from the other.

Another strong feature of Admiral culture is relentless curiosity and innovation, and we'll continue to evolve our products and innovate for our customers. We focus on offering competitive price, inclusive product, affordable product, including for nonstandard risks. Safety and sustainability are central in our product proposition, whether through fleet safety proposition like Flock or through EV electric vehicle leadership or initiatives around flood prevention.

We also want to increase our positive impact on communities, investing around 1% of profit into community initiatives with focus on employability and climate resilience. We are proud of the 45,000 volunteering hours delivered by our colleague in 2025 and remain committed to our net zero ambition by 2040. So that was the third pillar of our strategy.

Our strategy is also supported by a simple and disciplined capital management framework that is designed to increase value over time. So how we allocate capital to our operation? In U.K. Insurance, we focus on optimizing returns over the medium term. As we've always done, targeting consistently high return on equity with no structural capital constraints. In other lines, we invest to support growth and margin expansions where financial orders are met or expected to be met in the near term. In newer hires, like commercial, for example, we allocate capital to R&D and early-stage investment while requiring a clear right to win and scalability in the medium to long term.

A key structural advantage is our capital-efficient reinsurance model and this is a competitive advantage that is quite difficult to replicate as it stands as it is built over more than 20 years of strong track record.

Geraint already talked you through the other steps of our framework, including the introduction of buyback as additional way to return surplus to our shareholders. Selective M&A remains an opportunistic tool to accelerate growth, especially on Other Personal Lines in the U.K. and in Europe, only where our financial hurdles are met.

So in this slide, next slide, we bring all of it together. Our strategy and capital management framework designed to deliver strong value for our customers and shareholders. We already delivered strong earnings growth, exceptional return and resilience through the cycle with a 7.6% EPS CAGR over the last 5 years. Looking forward, our ambition is to sustain and build on that performance by scaling what already works, disciplined growing U.K. Motor, faster growth and margin expansions in other lines and continued optionality from capability improvements.

Our model is quite unique in the sector, delivering at the same time, strong returns, growth and exceptional capital efficiency. Importantly, this is about quality of growth as much as quantity, retaining our competitive advantage, our capital discipline and our culture that underpins them. In short, we believe we can continue to deliver higher returns sustainably while staying true to what makes Admiral different.

So conclusion, to sum up, 2025 was a record year for Admiral, record profits, record dividends and strong customer growth delivered through discipline in U.K. Motor and increasingly diversified contribution across the group.

Second, we have fully delivered our 2020-2025 strategy. Admiral today is resilient and more diversified with proven competitive advantage that are difficult to replicate.

Third, looking ahead to 2026, while U.K. Motor market remains competitive, we expect price to increase. Admiral is well positioned to perform strongly and remain disciplined and resilient through the cycle.

Fourth, we have evolved our strategy to compound those trends, not change direction, but raising ambition while staying disciplined. We have strengthened our capital management framework, adding buybacks alongside dividends while maintaining a very strong balance sheet and flexibility to invest. We remain confident on our trajectory, on our ability to leverage market trends and continue to deliver even greater value to our customers and to our shareholders for the long term.

Thank you very much for listening. And now we're ready to take questions.

[Operator Instructions] I think, first one, I saw it.

Darius Satkauskas with KBW. The first question is sort of a statement and a question. I appreciate the update to the capital return policy introduction of opportunistic buyback. I think one of the challenges with having an opportunistic buyback rather than the program is that when you do it, it's great. When you don't, it sort of signals in the market that management is saying the shares may be expensive. How are you going to deal with that challenge? And are there any hurdle rates you'd like to point for us to sort of gauge how you think about when we should expect buyback and when not?

And the second question is, your Flock acquisition, where do you think you are in positioning for the potential liability shift to Commercial from Personal among your competitors? And who do you think is going to determine the win in the future? Is there a risk that a company like Allianz with a huge balance sheet simply takes the entire market in Commercial Insurance? Or do you think Admiral can appropriately compete 10 years down the line, 20 years down the line?

Geraint, do you want to take the first one, I'll take the second?

Yes. So buybacks, it will be based on what the Board assesses is the right thing to do to try and deliver the max return for shareholders over the medium to long term. I don't, certainly for the foreseeable future, expect it to be dip in, dip out. We'd expect to be doing it for 2026, and we'll give -- we -- the company will give an update on that at least annually, I suspect, as we move forward. But yes, I hear your point on opportunistic versus steady.

So your second question is about Flock and Commercial Insurance. So there are a few reasons why we're interested in this market. It's attractive as stand-alone market, but it's also a market where we see we can deploy a lot of our strength. And the fleet market is very competitive. So you do need to be a very good underwriter. Our claims and pricing strength can be transferred across nicely. But we also think it's a market that is -- it will be disrupted. And that's why we didn't want to really enter in the traditional way, but just focus on a proposition that we think is fit for the future, is the type of business that's going to grow in the future. So it's telemetry based.

There's a lot of data from -- a lot of driving data, a sector in which we already have developed strong components to very large and growing telematic portfolio in Personal Lines. It's an interesting proposition because there is a strong feedback loop to driver to increase safety, to increase performance. And I would say it's also a building block for car of the future. The more the car become -- embed safety features and become autonomous, the more this type of skill set, data-driven pricing and underwriting and the feedback loop is important.

So for us, it's a very interesting way to create and to develop a business that is interesting per se, but is also a way into the future. And I think it's a competitive market. We need to do it in the right way and with a proposition that is future fit. That's our ambition there. And we think the mix of Flock skill, technology and proposition, an Admiral amount of data, strength in pricing, data-driven pricing sophisticated telematic and also very strong claims management really can create something unique.

Sorry, I'm going to go in order one.

It's Ivan Bokhmat from Barclays. My first question would be on the strategy into 2030. I just want to clarify, perhaps, did I interpret it correctly. So the slide that shows your 8% CAGR in the past 5 years, you're saying that you're trying to achieve that same growth into 2030. So as a statement, maybe you could just confirm that.

And secondly, on the trajectory of those earnings, as far as I understand, for 2026, you're talking about flattish numbers and then it would imply more of a hockey stick trajectory in later years. So perhaps you could just talk a little bit about how this trajectory might look like, where the acceleration will come and maybe specifically on the U.K. Motor, that cyclical target where you would grow 5% through the cycle over time, when will that time frame apply in this particular case?

And maybe one final small question. The partial internal model, the -- if you apply imminently, do you think you will get the regulatory approval by year-end? And what does it mean for some extra capital decisions?

Yes. So I think what we're seeing here is 3 things. As you know, we normally don't give very precise guidance on long-term or medium-term earnings. But what we're saying is that there are 2 very clear revenue for growth and profitable growth in the future. Our core market, that is U.K. Motor, is a market where we have a market-leading business, we expect to continue to grow across the cycle. We'll continue to do at the right time and with the right choice and the discipline around pricing. But we'll continue, as we've done in every single cycle since Admiral was founded. We'll continue to grow our U.K. business from a larger base and retaining very, very strong margin.

We also have another leg that is our other lines of business, Personal Lines and U.K. Insurance, Europe and Money, and we're planning to grow across all of them indistinctively and also increase margin for those business combined. So if you take those 2 things together, we expect to increase shareholders' returns over time without having necessarily put a specific date because there will still be some cyclicality. But the other preservation is with increased contribution from other lines, although there will still be market model cyclically to impact our results. We think we are gradually, over time, reducing the dependence on a single cycle. So that's the key message.

Internal model? On the internal model, we do expect to submit our application for approval very soon. The time line for review of that is not fixed. And as you can imagine, it's not a short read. So I think we'd update on the outcome of that at the appropriate time rather than comment on how long we expect it to take. If and when it's approved, you can be sure we'll be trying to use it around the business to optimize and things like that. And again, we'll talk about that at the right time.

Sorry, you mentioned something also about the shape. And as I was saying, there is still crack in the market. So as Geraint suggested, we do see a different path across the next few years. So we'll grow through the cycle. But next year may have a different impact on our growth ambition than the year after that. So that's -- but that's very normal. That's what we have done in the past, as you've seen in the slide that Alistair projected. We tend to grow when it's the right time when underwriting margin are healthier and will continue to do so. Sorry...

Ben Cohen at RBC. I just wanted to ask a few things on the U.K. Motor business. Firstly, would your central assumption be that you would be able to match claims inflation through the course of '26? And could you make a comment as to what you've seen in the market reaction as you've tried to put through or you have put through some price increases at the beginning of the year?

And the third element, could you just remind us what happened to claims inflation in Motor kind of post the Ukraine, Russia invasion, just to maybe give some sort of comparison with maybe where we are now in terms of the situation in the Middle East?

Al, take it the first and I'll, sorry...

Yes, sure. So in terms of managing through the cycle in 2026, we're expecting claims inflation, as I mentioned, to be towards more normal levels, so mid-single digits. We'll be looking at that. We'll be looking at elasticity within the market. We'll be thinking about average premiums and continuing to price with discipline. As you saw in 2025, we did that and we've -- as Geraint said, we're very happy with the profitability on that yet. It's not as strong as '24, but it's still strong. So that will be the same approach that we'll take to 2026.

As Milena said, reiterated, we think that's the right approach to optimizing both value and growth over the medium term. So far, in terms of market at the start of this year, we're seeing different strategies from different players. But broadly speaking, I'd say that market premiums have been relatively flat. But as I say, we've started to increase our prices at the start of the year.

In terms of claims inflation post the Russia invasion, there was a lot of disruption to the supply chain and that was one of the impacts that caused higher parts, vehicle inflation as well as supply chain constraints. We don't think it's a direct parallel to what we're seeing at the moment. In terms of the disruption that we're seeing at the moment is more about oil and fuel prices not directly related. But I think as you're inferring, it increases supply chain or the geopolitical instability increases the risk of that. So that's something we'll be watching very carefully through our supply chain.

Will Hardcastle, UBS. First of all, I'm going to embarrass you, Geraint. Thanks very much for your help over the years. There's been some journey in the current role. I've always really enjoyed our interactions, some of them quite lively. But you've always been really helpful. So good luck for future endeavors, including the Admiral roles.

Next, on to the questions, I'll ask you the tough ones now. You booked 2025 under -- undiscounted booked loss ratio at the 78% or 85% undiscounted. That's an average number. So I'm assuming the exit was slightly worse, given the shape of the pricing last year. I guess prepricing in excess of inflation, pre-percentile shifts, how roughly, where is the starting point essentially for that '26? How much worse than the 85% should we be thinking?

And then moving on to something a bit bigger picture, doubling of the non-U.K. Motor business. It's quite non-Admiral to give a target like this. I'm sort of intrigued as to the logic, the thinking behind being -- it must imply a lot of confidence behind it. Does it imply any slowdown at all of top line and sort of extraction of the benefits you put through? Or is this just a better hope and a direction of Travel from here?

I'll take the first one. So the first one was about the exit loss ratio. So as you pointed out, the undiscounted booked loss ratio is at 85%. It's not -- it's higher, obviously, than '24 that was an exceptional year, but it's not unusual if you look back at previous years, hence, the comments about good profitability.

As I said, we managed rates through the year, paying very close eye on claims trends. And in the second half, we were flat. And I think that means that the exit loss ratio was slightly higher than the overall, but not significantly so. And as I also mentioned, as we started in '26, we made some adjustments to price to make sure that our starting point in '26 was in the right place.

The second point is about confidence about the other line of business. It's a mix of 2 things. First of all, is the momentum. If you look at where we are, momentum and maturity, if you want, of some of our other lines of business, we have fantastic 2025, doubling profit in Admiral Money, strong recovery in Europe and return to profitability with confidence in the prospect and the future. And other lines of insurance in the U.K. also deliver a stellar year. I think we are reaching a maturity in those areas that allow us to continue to grow and increase margin over time. And it's also, I would say, a reflection of our strategy because the strategy is also very much about compounding.

And so what I mean is that we have a few things -- we're focusing a lot on is our proposition to multi customers, very important because customers with more risk have better retention, have better loss ratio and better NPS, tend to be happier and stick longer with better results and also better experience for them. So I think there is momentum in terms of the multi -- our journey to multi-products are probably later than some other player in the market because historically, we were very much a U.K. Motor story. But as this business grow, there's a lot of potential there. That's a very interesting opportunity, but also transferring some of the strength in Predictive AI, for example, across all the business is also another big driver of value.

And so if you merge those 2 things, plus economy of scale, plus potential benefit, we do see a momentum that will allow us to both continue growing and deliver more profit. And so I think it's really very much a reflection of our strategy and a bit of the switch of focus from growing individual business that are stand-alone interesting to really compound the benefit. So it's just meant to be that over time. We'll continue to be disciplined. So we follow cyclicality. There's cyclicality in the U.K. Household market that will take into account, but we do think we can achieve both growth and higher margins.

Thomas Bateman from Mediobanca. Just a quick question on the reserving. I was surprised to see the PYD quite low, but then the risk adjustment percentile come down. Could you just explain now how that's working?

And the second question is actually a follow-up to Will's on -- I guess, on Europe. I take your comment of Spain is breakeven now, but I guess you have been working on that for a while and there is more confidence there. And you alluded to AI platforms, et cetera. Have you been able to launch on any of those AI platforms, either in the U.K. or in Europe yet?

So do you want to take the risk adjustment? Costi maybe briefly comment on the confidence in Europe and Spain, and I will pick up maybe on the AI.

Actually, Tom, if you split out the Ogden impact on last year and compare year-on-year, you get the same percentage. So a fairly strong level of releases coming through year-on-year. The percentile was really ever so slightly down. I wouldn't say that we'd notably dropped the risk adjustment strength. So it's a very strong set of reserves and continued pretty consistent releases coming through basically in line, I think, with what we've guided in that kind of 10-ish range over the past couple of years.

So on Europe and then on the AI point, so basically, yes, as Milena mentioned, there is a good level of confidence. It's a large opportunity where we are making very good progress on several fronts. And what is giving to us the confidence is that we are keep trading at very good margins on the direct business and we are seeing very good progress coming from the distribution-diversification initiatives, which will help us to target much larger opportunities. And so once also those initiatives will turn into profitable ones in the medium term, we expect our overall margins to expand. In addition to that, we expect a more efficient reinsurance agreements to provide benefit in the medium to longer term.

Clearly, there is also an element about the competitiveness on the expense side on the efficiency. And we're also there making good progress, and we are testing also some more advanced gen AI tools and models. On this front, it's more early days, but early signs are very promising.

I think more in general on AI, there is a lot of opportunities. And a lot of that is focused on improving efficiency internally. It's about improving automation, increasing speed of servicing the customer and so forth. I guess your question was more referred to the distribution element. So how customers interact and choose insurance. And if you think about Admiral from very early stage, we've always been a bit of a forefront of disruption and distribution, and we were among the first direct player in the market in the U.K. We were the first to have an Internet-only brand, Elephant, let's call it in U.K. We're the first one to embed price comparison site with confused.com and so forth.

So it's obviously something that, as you may imagine, we're very close -- we're working very close to price comparison site as they may embed more gen AI technology in their way of interacting to customer and distribution and adapting our website.

We also have interesting pilot in part of the business, like gen AI embed chatbot in Veygo and other initiative across the group. So something we're very, very close. Now if you ask me, do you think this is going to be a very big disruption in U.K. Motor in the short term? I personally don't think is the case. I think there will be a different way of interacting with the customer. But the value proposition to a customer, how much you can save by shopping on price comparison site on Motor insurance is huge. It's hundreds of pounds sometimes.

So I don't think it's going to be the first market where we see a lot of change. I think it's early to say. Everything is very nascent at this stage, but I think there are markets where this could be an acceleration to direct and that could be the one where customers are more used to speak with an intermediary, for example. So it can be commercial lines, it can be Europe where direct is not picked. But at this stage, it's very early to say. As for us, we try to be close to everything and work and progress on all the fronts at the same time. I think we had 1, 2 and 3, yes.

Carl Lofthagen from Berenberg. Just the first one on the U.K. Home book. I think we've seen kind of continued expense ratio improvement as you've gained scale and you're now running the business at a combined ratio in sort of the mid-80s. Is that sort of the level that you're sort of happy with? Or are you willing to trade some margin to take market share as you've kind of said you want to be a top 3 player?

And then the second question is just a clarification on the share count development. I think if I just look at the basic share count, which decreased by GBP 5 million from GBP 306 million to GBP 301 million in H2, but diluted went up GBP 1 million. Presumably, the shares you're buying back for the share scheme shouldn't impact the share count. Just I guess for modeling purposes, I mean, how should we kind of think about that, excluding sort of any sort of additional buybacks, et cetera?

Sorry, Al, you take the first. Geraint will take the second.

So on the Household expense ratio, we've had an advantage in terms of expense ratio for Household for some time. But as you highlight, it's an area of focus. As the book grows and we get more renewals to customers, that helps in terms of expense ratio, but we're also focused on driving improvements. For example, Milena talked about how we can use gen AI for both customer experience and efficiency. So those are areas of focus.

In terms of the combined ratio range, we think about Household similar to Motor, where it's about optimizing for value over the medium term. But as you're alluding to, we're a bit more biased towards growth on Household than margin. But we -- I think the 80% is good. I think we talked a bit about a range when we did the deep dive, so we're not sort of sticking to a specific target. But we'll do that in optimizing for value and growth over the medium term.

On share count, Carl, if you look at the -- in the back of our accounts on Note 12, you got the update the number of shares that were in issue every year. It's been GBP 306 million odd for a couple of years since we stopped diluting for the share plans. The GBP 301 million is actually the number that's used in the EPS, and that excludes some of those shares that are held in the trust.

The share purchases per share plans won't adjust the number of shares that were an issue, obviously. They will go to employees. The share buyback and cancel, obviously, that will reduce the number of shares in issue. So the purchase for the share plans doesn't change the number of shares. Buybacks obviously will.

It's Derald Goh from Jefferies. Two big picture questions, if I may, please. So the 4% sort of EV -- sorry, AV penetration rate by 2035, that's an interesting number. I'm just keen to hear what are the main variables that might sway that number. Essentially how prudent is that 4%? And maybe if you could also say what were your projections 10 years ago? How does that compare to what you had 10 years ago, let's say?

And then secondly, going back to distribution, you mentioned there's potential to disrupt there. Maybe could you speak to your past experiences? I know you've been trying to push PCWs outside the U.K. Some places are more successful than others. What might be different this time that would allow you to be more successful with whether it's AI or changes in customer behaviors and what not?

Sure. I think I'll take the first and second, but Costi, if you want to add anything on distribution outside U.K., it would be great. So EV, this is referred to this is referred to relatively common forecasts that have been out like the World Economic Forum and a lot of other organization. And I think the number is quite aligned. You may look at car sales in terms of car park is 4% because there is quite a lag time from new sales to fit into car park. The average -- the median age of a car in U.K. is 16 and probably the average is 11 years. So it takes time as the new model gets released.

I think you're absolutely right. So it's still very much of an estimate, and there are a lot of influencing factors. You need to get, first of all, regulation in place, infrastructure in place, technology and investment in place and customer appetite in place. So there are a lot of things that can contribute and can go both direction. If we don't see the simultaneous development of all these 4 areas, it's difficult to imagine a world in which people will really freely just use autonomous vehicles car on the roads.

So I cannot tell if it's prudent or not. But I would say this is really the majority of the -- I think everybody agrees that it takes some time, both because there are some hurdles and because there is time for the car park to evolve. And I think also take the chance to remind that this is about L3+. L3 basically means when the driver can take the highs off of the wheel, but still need to get in, in 10 seconds. So it's not really full benefit of EV in terms of, for example, liability shift and so forth. Anyway, it's very nascent now.

So you asked me how this was versus 10 years ago? I think this is a story that we see in all the technology disruption. If I go back 10 years, this was supposed to be earlier. And so what happened is that this projection tend to shift. If you ask me how it was compared to a few years back, like maybe 3, 4? What I would say is not very different, but we see a slightly later adoption, but probably faster. It very often happen with every technology now that it takes longer, longer, longer, but then it can be more. So it's difficult to say, honestly. It's very, very early stage, and the U.K. is a bit behind the U.S. in terms of regulation and so forth.

Second question was on distribution. I don't know, Costi, do you want to kick it off on?

Yes. On distribution, the -- well, the European markets, as you know, are very different. When we started our businesses a few years ago, I think direct was about 5%. Now on average, it's getting closer to 20% -- between 15% and 20%, so direct is still growing. And therefore, if a more AI-driven disruption would happen, we could say that being a leading player in those markets that will put us in a nice place. At the same time, price comparisons, you're right. We try to educate the market and to push more digital growth to accelerate. It didn't happen at the speed we expected.

And at the moment, as I said, direct is still growing, price comparisons are doing nicely, but not at a supe- fast speed. At the same time, traditional are still a very important channel, which predominantly is the main channel, which is linked why we decided a while ago to start to diversify the distribution and on how to win and how we can be confident basically because the right to wins are exactly the same of direct. So risk selection, customer experience and lean operations. And the moment you demonstrate that you can replicate those, then you can win in that market and our results that are coming through are making us confident more and more that we can achieve this.

Andreas van Embden, Peel Hunt. Two questions, please. First one is on ancillary sales. I saw that the average sort of revenue per vehicle in the U.K. has come down from GBP 76 to GBP 71. Just wondered what your outlook is for this in '26 and '27, particularly not only on the installment income because I assume you've lowered your APRs, which has brought down the average premium per policy there or per vehicle there. But also on the other ancillary sales, whether you're seeing any pressure on those fees and commissions?

And on -- the second question is on price velocity. I think you mentioned that. I just wondered what would you exactly meant by that in the U.K. and whether extending it means changing pricing more. I don't know whether you do intraday pricing or not in the U.K. But whether -- with that velocity, by how much could you extend it? And how important is that to maintain your competitive position, particularly through PCWs in the U.K. as the market becomes more competitive?

So it's Al. I'll take the first one. As you mentioned, the main driver of the change in the revenue is premium finance. It's worth noting that there's 2 impacts there. So we did reduce our APR through 2025, in line with the cost of funds. But also, we saw our average premiums coming down through the year. So that also impacts on the other revenue per vehicle.

So in terms of our APRs, they're very competitive at the moment, not necessarily anticipating any changes, but we'll continue to assess for fair value on that product. In terms of average premiums, as we've said, we're expecting the market to turn and that will lead to -- and we're increasing our premium, so that will flow through as well. I don't think there's anything else of significant note to call out on other revenue.

So on the price velocity, I think if we step back just a few years back, a lot of the pricing was done through SaaS or XL, and we could put price change in production overnight, we can have a meeting. If you all ask me, I'll let Geraint decide and make change almost overnight. That is still the case. And I think it's an advantage. And I think it's really rooted in the culture and the closeness of the management team to price into claims trend and that relevance that we give to loss ratio all around Admiral. But our pricing is more and more based on machine learning and predictive AI models.

And this, of course, is not something that you change overnight because it's more complex, require more technology, the process to upgrade and renew the model just takes longer. And we've done a fantastic -- like a lot of work in the last year or 2 to really bring this time from ideation to change in production much shorter and shorter. I think there is still a bit we can go for. And so we're very close and we have a strong capability, more than 120 models in place, GBP 100 million of loss ratio incremental value.

So we start from a good point. But I think there is more we can go to increase this even more. But the biggest opportunity in my mind is to extend this also more and to extend these trends more into other lines of business. So that's where I see the excitement. And to do that, we appointed this year a new group CDO. She did a great job in Europe to set up a new data platform. She just -- she's coming over and she came over actually a couple of months ago, and she's going to help to increase even more this ability. So I think we're really in a very strong position, but want to go. We're very keen to be as fast as we can.

[Operator Instructions]

We will now go to the question. And the question comes from the line of Vash Gosalia from Goldman Sachs.

Hopefully you can hear me. First of all, apologies for not being there in person. I have 2 questions, please. The first one is just on something you mentioned on your 2026 profitability. So if I heard you correctly, you said you plan to move to the middle of your confidence interval through 2026. And you've obviously also said you expect flattish profitability. So can I read that as your earnings in 2026 actually being supported by PYD just to offset some of the weakness in U.K. Motor? And any sort of color as to how or why that might be different would be really helpful.

And the second question, a slightly longer term or big picture question. So you've obviously sort of alluded to you having a lot of sort of advantage on the cost ratio front. And you can obviously leverage AI and gen AI to improve that. But I'm just trying to think if the technology essentially democratizes the use of AI, wouldn't that allow your competitors to actually gain advantage quicker and narrow the gap to you? So any sort of color or comment on that would be helpful as well.

Will you take the first?

Yes. So we would expect to start to release our -- reduce our risk adjustment percentile from its current near max level towards the middle of the range during 2026. I would reject your assertion of weak U.K. Motor. I think U.K. Motor profitability for '25 is strong, but slightly less strong than the extremely strong 2024. So we think there's good profitability to come on 2025. And obviously, that starts to feed into the accounts in 2026.

PYD and reserve releases are a constant feature of our income statement and profitability. But you are right to expect as we reduce the risk adjustment to some extent, obviously, that contributes to profitability in 2026 versus 2025. And if you do the mix, flat profitability, but higher profits from other lines of business means slightly lower profits from U.K. Motor, but from a very high start point. So I think -- Vash, I think that was the nature of the question, right?

Yes. I mean -- and apologies if I said like weak profitability. I meant more direction-wise. But yes, you've answered my question.

No offense taken.

On the second point, it's a very good question. It's a very good question. I think every technological evolution, data evolution and if you think about digitalization, automation, migration to cloud, more and more like technology, it becomes more and more a commodity itself, but the way technology is implemented is very differentiating and it becomes more so as we move along. And so a big decision on AI is how you do it. A big driver are how much this is adopted. So you can deploy gen AI tool to have all the organization, but how much is adopted, how is adopted is a massive driver of how much efficiency benefit you can drive.

I think we start in a great situation because we tend to have a very strong culture, very transparent and people with good expertise that are really, really keen to do what is right for the business. Governance is another differentiating factor, how you govern what you put in place and how you make sure that it's solid, is stable, how make sure that the model learn over time. I think an appetite for innovation, bottom up as well as top-down is also very important. So I think a lot of the element that plays here are a culture and also the ability to do it faster, better and cheaper than others. And it's still early to say, but I think we are well positioned to achieve that.

We have a last question.

It's Shanti from Bank of America. You just touched a bit earlier when we talked about the internal model and how that could give you a bit of flexion for M&A. Historically, I guess, you guys have partnered with names via Pioneer or you've had a relationship with the existing names before you would kind of move forward with an M&A transaction. What kind of skill sets or regions, if you were looking at that, would you be thinking of?

It's the last question. Do you want to take it?

It sounds like I've explained this badly. I wasn't really referring to the internal model coming in, giving us more firepower for M&A necessarily. I understand the point of the question, but I think funding small M&A to retain profitability is one of the options I would talk about. I know you should cover where M&A might play a part of it.

Yes. So as I said, our plan -- our history of successful organic growth, and we're excited about the plan we have on growing organically. We will look into opportunity mainly to accelerate diversification, I would say. So as we've done with Flock as we've done with More Than, we'll look at accelerated diversification in other lines of business in insurance in the U.K. or in Europe where we need more scale. But we stay open, look and see, but also very, very focused on our organic growth plan and consider different option on how to eventually tackle the challenge.

Thank you very much. Thank you for your question, and thank you for your time. And we'll be around a few minutes if that can help. Thanks a lot.

Milena, congratulations. 2025 results show what another excellent year it's been. What would you say were your highlights for the year?

Well, James, first of all, thank you very much for agreeing to joining me today. And you're absolutely right. 2025 was an excellent year. We delivered great financial results, but also a lot of strategic progress. And all these, thanks to the fantastic colleagues across the Admiral Board that I want to take the opportunity to thank again for their contribution.

So much to be proud of. Starting with record profit of GBP 958 million, up 16% from already very strong 2024, and we also grew group customer by 7% in the year. Market was more competitive in UK Motor, and it's great that we continue to show our resilience and we continue to deliver market-leading combined ratio, but there were very strong contribution also for other parts of the business. So UK Motor passed the bar of GBP 1 billion profit. That is an outstanding achievement. But the other part of the business, European motor, Admiral money and other personal lines in the U.K. combined also delivered GBP 100 million of profit. Well done to everybody across the Admiral Group.

So that was 2025. And having just moved across to my new role, leading the UK Motor claims team, I'd be interested to know about your outlook on pricing for 2026.

Indeed, James, congratulations for the new role. You now manage a few billions of cost. No pressure. Indeed, the price fell around 10% in 2025 for the overall market in UK Motor. We expect this to revert and price to increase as inflation continue. And we tend to absorb volatility better than others, and we'll continue to make sure we remain as competitive as possible for as many customers as possible.

Now I know we're refreshing the strategy. How are we performing on the existing strategy?

Great question, James. We announced our current strategy in 2020, and we achieved so much in the last 5 years, incredible results. Our turnover grew by nearly 90%. Our customer, our profit by almost 60%. We have a business that is more diversified. More than half of our customer now comes from lines of business and geography outside beyond UK Motor. We strengthened our proposition, our data and technology platform to make sure they are fit to the future, deliver scale agile and strengthen of our current capabilities. So overall, I think we are more resilient and stronger than ever. And in the meantime, we delivered GBP 3.2 billion to our shareholders.

Excellent achievements. But why change now?

Let me start by saying that this is not a discontinuity. It's an inflection. It's an acceleration of our existing strategy. We want to make sure we capitalize on what we just discussed, a more diversified business and stronger competitive advantage and platform to really compound the value over time to deliver even more for our customers and our shareholders. So now it is a good time to raise our ambition. And finally, the market is evolving. There are a lot of interesting opportunities and market trends that we want to make sure we leverage to deliver even more.

Over the last 5 years, we have significantly adapted our motor proposition. But what else do you expect to happen in the updated strategy?

Yes. So indeed, our motor business in U.K. is continue to grow and will continue to grow with discipline, and we maintain market-leading margin. But beyond that, we also want to grow at a faster pace than motor, the other lines of business. And we also want to increase the margin in the other lines of business. And this will be partially by transferring our incredible strength in motor insurance across all the products and all the other geographies, but also continue to evolve and embrace generative AI, create more synergies, continue to extend our predictive AI capabilities.

And another area, another big enabler is going to be the focus on multiproduct. We are focusing more on connecting the dots among the different products to drive even higher retention, better loss ratio and more importantly, great experience for our customers. We're going to make sure that our talent and our culture evolve too. And we're going to reskill our colleagues and make sure that they're going to be a driving force of our future success.

And it's our culture, that's the reason we continue to be recognized as a Great Place to Work in every market and achieve legendary status for being a Great Place to Work in the U.K. for 25 consecutive years.

What a fantastic accolade. And I really want to thank all the other colleagues that are really the core of our business and for how they show up and support our customers and support each other, but also taking the opportunity to thank Geraint Jones, that is our group CFO that will step down in its current capacity at the end of June. Geraint has been really instrumental and contributed a lot in the shape of our business performance and our culture. He's a trusted adviser and friend to many of us. So I'm looking forward to continue to work with him in this new advisory capacity. And I'm also very excited to start working with Rachel on the 1st of July. Rachel Lewis is a fantastic example of internal mobility. As you are.

So speaking of internal mobility, we should probably turn our attention to external mobility trends. What are your thoughts?

What an interesting segue, James. Yes, there is a lot happening in that space. And it's really great to see how the evolution of car technology improves safety on the road. Being close to mobility trend has been a focus of ours for many years. And we really try to embrace these trends earlier on, as we have done, for example, with telematics or electric vehicles where we are a market leader. We are a company that has always been very focused on data-driven pricing, and that's really fit and suit very well our skill. And I think we're well positioned for the future.

But to make sure it remains and continues to be the case, we also focus on interesting partnership. We just recently signed a partnership with Wayve for autonomous vehicles and supporting the pilot in London. But more importantly, we announced our intention to acquire Flock, that is a telemetry-based fleet insurance provider.

So it feels like we're not placed to meet the changing mobility needs of our customers. There's been a lot of talk about the impact of AI on our industry. How do you think that AI can be used in our business and for our customers?

A hot topic, indeed. But to be honest, since the very beginning, we use data and technology to improve efficiency and to improve customer experience. And this is a continuation, although at accelerated pace that what we've always done. Predictive AI, in particular, is something we embraced a long time ago and now is the leading driver of our market leading loss ratio. One of the reasons why we managed to be so competitive for so many people.

Generative AI, it's a fantastic potential, both to improve customer interaction, the way we engage with customers, but also to bring efficiency to the business. That is another way to bring a very competitive price in front of our customer. And this can benefit many, many areas of the business. Given you're here, let me pick on Claims. That's an area I'm particularly excited about because it can help us to accelerate our response with the customer as well as drive claims cost down and therefore, price down. So great potential for the business.

Agreed. And my new team are already using it to provide real-time support for more than 2,000 colleagues.

Exactly. And through our new GenAI Center of Excellence can really accelerate, take a lot of the pilot we have and scale them as we see fit and make sure that we provide all our people with the right training and the right tools to continue to make the most of this great technology.

Thinking about our colleagues who are all shareholders, why have you decided to start a share buyback program?

I'm so proud that all our colleagues participate financially in the success of the business. This really reinforces our culture, our focus on customer and long term. So the Board and the management review regularly, yearly, what is the best way to return excess capital to our shareholders. And this year, we've seen a stronger case for a share buyback, and that's why we will start this program mid this year.

And looking ahead to 2026, what are you most excited about?

Claims, of course, James, given you are here. No, I'm joking. It's like you're asking me to pick up my favorite child, an impossible task. I'm so glad that in real life, I have only one. I think we start 2026 with a strong momentum and a lot of opportunities we can capitalize on. Admiral has always been agile and faster even when it continued to grow in size. And we want to make sure that this remains the case. And we have a lot of initiatives in place to make sure that we increase the speed of delivery of technology change, change on behalf of the customers and also speed of settlement.

So we make sure that we bring our customers back from their travel, back in their car, back in their home as soon as possible. Again, that's what we're here to do. So very much looking forward to keep working with you and with all the rest of Admiral colleagues to make sure that we continue to deliver even more value for all our stakeholders.

Wonderful. Thank you, Milena.

Thank you, James.

Welcome, everyone. Thank you for coming this morning. This is Admiral Group's Household -- U.K. Household and Beyond Motor deep dive. I'm introducing today's session, and then our top team will take you through the deep dive. And after that, we've got plenty of time for Q&A.

So why are we doing this session today? Well, these businesses have established a track record of top line growth, reaching profitable scale, and we've just completed the integration of the More Th>n Home and Pet books, which has gone very well. We're excited about the future and believe today is a good time to share more information to help you understand more about Beyond Motor, including market dynamics, our performance, competitive advantages and why we believe we're well equipped to win in these markets.

So let me give an overview first. Admiral U.K. Insurance is well placed to deliver sustainable profitable growth over the medium term, and this is driven by 3 areas of focus. First, our customer centricity, delivering great products and customer experience, especially at point of claim with strong NPS and very competitive prices. Second, Motor operational excellence, balancing growth with market-leading combined ratio performance, both benefiting from strong retention.

And third, the main topic for today, Beyond Motor, also known as Household, Pet and Travel is a key driver of future growth for the group. There are 5 points to highlight. First, we have quickly gained profitable scale with top 5 positions in markets totaling GBP 11 billion. In 2025, we're seeing an inflection point with GBP 3.6 million risks and GBP 25 million profit at the half year. We're replicating our U.K. Motor operational excellence in distribution, pricing, claims and financial discipline to deliver customers great value and experience.

We've established and scaled these businesses organically, but we boosted our trajectory and further strengthened our capabilities through the More Th>n acquisition. Multi is a source of additional future customers for Home, Travel and Pet, whilst also enhancing the value of Motor, contributing to market-leading retention and adding additional data for pricing. Looking ahead, there's plenty of headroom for growth, and we continue to strengthen our capabilities.

Overall, we're confident that all 3 businesses can achieve top 3 market position whilst delivering market-leading combined ratios, making a meaningful contribution to group profits in the medium term.

Let me introduce you to the team who are leading Home, Travel and Pet. Scott Cargill has been in Admiral for 9 years and is familiar to you as the founding CEO of Admiral Money, now a sustainable profitable business. I was delighted to welcome Scott to U.K. Insurance leadership at the start of this year. He's brought energy and a fresh perspective to Beyond Motor and to U.K. Insurance as a whole. Scott will provide an overview of Beyond Motor.

Noel Summerfield, he doesn't look old enough, but he's been in Admiral for over 20 years, and he's led Household since 2013. Noel has built a strong team that is translating Admiral's strengths in pricing, claims, customer experience and cost discipline to household. Noel will give an overview of the U.K. household market and Admiral's competitive advantages.

Rachel Lewis, even harder to believe that Rachel has been with us for 20 years. Rachel has worked across all areas of finance, including Group Finance Director. For the last 2 years, we've been very lucky to have Rachel as our U.K. Insurance CFO, providing financial direction to U.K. Insurance and within that, Beyond Motor. Rachel will outline financial performance, capital management and reserving for U.K. insurance Beyond Motor. Also in the audience, we've got Cosmin and Prit, who lead our Travel and Pet businesses, respectively. So let's begin. I'll pass to Scott.

Thanks, Al. Good morning, everyone. As you know, Admiral has always been a business that thrives on disciplined growth and innovation. We built our success in Motor insurance by challenging the status quo, combining top-class underwriting with an obsessive focus on customers and efficiency. Today, we're here to talk about how we've been leveraging that winning formula in our U.K. personal lines Beyond Motor.

The Household, Pet and Travel businesses are part of Admiral's long-term strategy and the most meaningful of personal lines outside of Motor. Today, these 3 markets are worth around GBP 11 billion, which is just over half the size of the personal Motor market and are expected to grow to GBP 14 billion by 2030. In all 3 lines, the dominant distribution channel is price comparison and penetration rates are still rising.

In Household, price comparison takes around a 75% share of new business, and we expect recent market consolidation to support pricing and margin resilience in the medium term. For Pet, price comparison now makes up 50% of new business with vet partnerships and other direct channels making up the rest. There has been an increase in pet ownership and insurance penetration since the pandemic. In Travel, price comparison has now grown to 65% penetration of new business, and it continues to take share from banking packaged accounts and other direct channels.

Our ambition is best articulated with 2 clear goals: Firstly, to build independently profitable business lines, each achieving competitive advantage in their respective markets and delivering sustainable, profitable growth over the medium term. Secondly, to contribute to the wider U.K. business by adding more customers and increasing customer loyalty. All 3 businesses are well run in attractive markets with strong leadership teams and are making solid progress. Although at different stages of development, they all evidence capabilities, which give some competitive advantage in their respective markets.

While each business has its own strategy, specific for those markets, a few elements are either shared or reinforced as being part of the whole. Starting with distribution. Leveraging our market-leading price comparison expertise and our ability to deliver the right price for customers, we already now have scale and trust across all 3 lines. Millions of households across the U.K. know Admiral is a fair, transparent and dependable brand. Our multiproduct ecosystem gives us access to customers who already trust us with their cars and who are natural candidates for home, travel and pet protection.

Moving to our deep capability in pricing and claims. The analytics and digital infrastructure that underpin our Motor success can be directly leveraged in these lines. Our ability to interpret data, respond to emerging risks and refine underwriting in real time give us a clear competitive edge in a market where precision and speed increasingly define the winners.

And finishing with scale and shared capabilities. These include Admiral's customer operations, our technology expertise and our overall talent pool. Admiral has a culture that executes. Our unique balance of entrepreneurial autonomy and disciplined capital management has driven market-leading performance for more than 2 decades, and this same mindset is being applied to our Beyond Motor business lines.

At the end of H1 '25, we have achieved scale in all 3 markets. Household is our most mature business and has averaged around a 30% CAGR since launch. We underwrite 2.1 million risks and generated just under GBP 500 million in GWP in 2024. Travel has delivered strong growth with over 50% CAGR since launch. Today, we underwrite 1.1 million risks and generate close to GBP 60 million premium in the first half of 2025. And finally, Pet is fast growing and close to breakeven. It is growing at a 5x CAGR since launching in 2022.

So in total, we now have 3.6 million customers, which generated over GBP 700 million of GWP in the 12 months to June '25. We are establishing a significant share of direct markets and are a top 5 player already with the ambition to be a top 3 player with market shares of at least 10% in all 3 lines in the medium term. Our combined ratios across all businesses are performing well. And as Alistair mentioned, we see 2025 as an inflection point. Having delivered record H1 profit with our proven approach of scaling selectively and profitably, there remains significant opportunity for organic growth, both in price comparison and in multi- opportunities with the rest of the U.K. Motor customer base.

Moving now to talk about our first acquisition. This was the RSA More Th>n deal, which is now completed. This was a renewal rights acquisition for GBP 83 million, chosen for its strong strategic fit, low risk and cultural alignment. The delivery was smooth, on time and on budget. We onboarded 300 new colleagues in April '24 and successfully migrated around 380,000 risks adding over just over GBP 100 million of GWP by August '25. The deal accelerated our Pet business by around 3 years and accounted for 2/3 of Household growth from July '24 to July '25. Year 1 conversion met our plan and early year 2 retention is exceeding expectations. Loss ratios are also strong across both lines.

Beyond growth, the deal expanded our capabilities, providing broader data for pricing, enabling in-house claims processing for Pet and given us the option to use the More Th>n brand. It also brought operational synergies and further expertise in household. We're pleased with this deal structure and see it as a strong template for future growth.

Moving to the risk and regulatory landscape, where Admiral businesses have been and remain in a strong position. Our focus in Admiral is always on good outcomes and driving value for customers. In the past few years, we have proactively made a lot of improvements throughout our customer journeys and have adapted to changes in general insurance pricing and the consumer duty. As you might expect, we've been engaging closely with the FCA on the household and travel claims handling review and closely monitoring the CMA review of the veterinary sector.

We have had positive engagement with the FCA on both the market review and the themes highlighted in the Which? super-complaint. We are very confident on our internal processes and procedure, which monitor customer outcomes. This is evidenced by over 85% of household customers confirming they are likely to renew us after a claim contributing to 2 to 3 basis point advantage over market on retention.

In summary, when we set our strategy for Home, Pet and Travel lines, we identified key ingredients to replicate our Motor success, distribution, operational excellence, risk selection, award-winning customer service, combined with an efficient use of capital. Over the past few years, we've made solid progress in all. We believe that by doing for Homes, Pet and Travel, what we did for cars, Admiral can build a top-tier insurance franchise in these lines, one that captures meaningful market share, generates superior returns and strengthens our position as one of the U.K.'s most trusted personal lines.

Now with established scale, I'm delighted to see strong progress in leveraging the strength of our Beyond Motor businesses to provide sustainable competitive advantage back into Motor. As Al and Milena have highlighted in the past, customers with multiple products are more than the sum of their parts. The most significant benefit is retention, where we see more than a 5-point improvement versus single risk customers in Motor. This creates a virtuous cycle of better insights, more data, improved pricing and ultimately, a stronger customer experience.

Our recent investments to bring our U.K. lines closer together mark the start of an exciting phase where we aim to meet more insurance needs for the 5 million U.K. insurance customers who currently have just one product with us. With that, I'll hand over to Noel to talk in more detail about our home insurance business.

Thanks, Scott. Good morning, everyone. I'm Noel Summerfield, Household Director, and I was part of the team that launched Household, which I've been leading since 2013. We started Household with the aim of mirroring the success of our amazing Motor business. Today, I'll share how we are very much on the right path to achieving that ambition. We're performing well versus our peers, thanks to a winning formula underpinned by excellence in pricing and claims.

I'll start off by looking at the market. Price comparison has become the dominant channel for about 3/4 of new business sales, as you can see on the left-hand side, mirroring Motor, but with penetration lagging by around 5 years. As Scott has already mentioned, price comparison is a channel we know and understand very well. And it's been a catalyst for us to grow to become a top 5 insurer by premium in just over a decade.

Up until 2023, market average premiums were in decline, fueled by growing brands like Admiral taking market share through that growing price comparison channel. This trend resulted in a drop in market profitability. This was made worse in 2022 following the introduction of the GI pricing practices, high claims inflation and as some of you might remember, a rather large freeze event. A market correction followed with rate increases through 2023 and 2024 with the market now standing at around GBP 8 billion GWP. Transferring the fundamentals from our Motor business has allowed us to continue growing during this challenging period.

One of the core fundamentals we stick to is discipline in pricing and claims. Whilst remaining disciplined, we've been the largest seller of new business for several years with around 1/3 of sales coming from our existing Motor customers in the form of multicover. It also helps that we've got a great brand. Admiral is a top 3 home insurance brand for spontaneous awareness and consideration, which helps boost conversion. We provide great customer service with NPS above 50 and happy customers stay longer, which is shown by our higher-than-market retention rates.

All of this has allowed us to grow to over 2.1 million customers. And at the same time, we've outperformed the market on combined ratio by an average of 6 points over the last 5 years. I think about the Household business in 4 areas: Risk selection and pricing, cost management, customer and risk. Firstly, risk selection and pricing. We cover a broad range of customer needs, including nonstandard features such as listed buildings, unusual construction and business use. To do this, we ask lots of extra questions, consume lots of third-party data, and we can deploy rate changes very rapidly. More on all of this in a second.

The next fundamental of our Household business is our approach to managing cost. We have a very strong expense ratio, which is about half that of the market average, which has been achieved by distribution through price comparison and cross-sell, strong digital capabilities throughout the life cycle of the policy. And we have a lower claims handling cost per policy helped by settling claims faster.

Moving on to customer. We use data to assess the performance of our products and benchmark them regularly. These insights have driven recent enhancements, including increasing coverage and reducing excesses. Great customer service has been fundamental to Admiral's success, and it's no different in Household, particularly at point of claim. Our streamlined claims processes mean that we engage with more customers. This, in turn, means more insight into areas customers find challenging, which leads to us making further improvements.

Finally, risk management. We use multiple flood assessment models and are active participants in the Flood Re scheme. This leads to great underwriting, which has translated into more than a 30% reduction in modeled flood losses compared to peers. We purchase excess of loss annually and have proportional reinsurance in place, too, which Rachel will cover in more detail later. This combined approach of providing competitive prices to a broad range of customers, being there for them when they need us most and listening and using that feedback to drive improvement is why our Trustpilot score is over 4.5 and retention is high even after a claim.

Now look at pricing in a bit more detail. So I mentioned already that pricing and risk selection has been a competitive advantage of Admirals. The Household approach mirrors that of Motor using similar techniques, technology, processes and approach to data. We cover a broad range of customer needs, including nonstandard risks with our quote footprint one of the most generous in the market, returning a price for around 85% of quotes.

We do this by asking extra questions so that we really understand the risk in more detail and can price it appropriately. Like Motor, there's a desire to have as much high-quality data as possible and to use it creatively. For example, instead of taking a score from a third-party vendor, we prefer to get the raw data. We might segment it differently or apply extra steps to improve it before deploying it into our models. Over the past few years, we've been going through a bit of an evolution in our pricing.

All of our pricing is now underpinned by data science machine learning models. This has allowed us to capture more correlations in the data whilst preserving human intuition so that the output is fully understood. This hybrid approach is also very agile. Pricing tech is ring-fenced, so we don't have to compete with other IT requests, and this allows us to make changes very rapidly. For example, it's not uncommon for rate changes to be approved and deployed on the same day, again, common with Motor.

Our approach to pricing for weather and the threat of climate change is prudent. We take past market experience and blend that with our own learning over the last 13 years. We then add margin to account for the threat of climate change, resulting in more frequent and more severe weather losses. In summary, this data-led rigorous approach has enabled us to improve our loss ratios through a period of rapid growth. It also means we can remain disciplined during more volatile periods of market rating, keeping medium-term targets in mind, again, common with Motor. Moving on to claims, the moment of truth for our customers. Similar to pricing in claims, we are learning and leveraging the best parts of our Motor business, whilst recognizing the nuances of the home insurance market.

Firstly, over 1/3 of our claims are registered online with this number increasing during periods of search. We use the same claims administration system as Motor, which means in those periods of surge, pretrained Motor agents can seamlessly transfer to ensure customer service is maintained. This extra capacity, coupled with these efficient digital journeys is critical, ensuring that we can be there for our customers when they need us most.

I want to share 2 quick examples with you. In storm Éowyn, in February, we had about a month's worth of claims over the course of the weekend with call answer rates remaining above 95% throughout. And a great nonsurge example is our ability for customers to register claims digitally, go through automated checks like fraud before having their claim fulfilled all without human intervention. A recent example of a claim was settled in less than 20 minutes end-to-end. Speed to register claims is also critical. We register claims from storm events 30% quicker than peers according to independent benchmarking, which means we can triage claims and secure finite supplier capacity quicker.

Being front of queue has helped us settle claims 12% faster than the market. This drives good customer outcomes and lower cost. We have a longstanding relationship with our supply chain. As we've grown, we've supplemented that by strengthening our capabilities with experienced in-house loss adjusters and surveyors. This blended approach gives us more flexibility and is one of the reasons we've seen weather losses being around half that of the market average.

We register claims from storm events 30% quicker than peers according to independent benchmarking -- sorry, beg your pardon. So home insurance is the second largest personal lines market with room to keep growing. We're making great progress in Household, and we're already a top 5 player, as mentioned. And we're on the right trajectory to achieve our ambition of replicating our very, very successful Motor business.

We already sell more new business than anyone else due to great risk selection and pricing. We offer great value products and provide great service with customer retention higher than peers. And we have a market-leading expense ratio with AI initiatives in operations, claims and underwriting underway. This gives us confidence of increasing the gap further to support our improving combined ratio. Finally, we'll continue to grow through a combination of remaining price competitive on a price comparison channel, which is growing and cross-selling to our Motor book. I'll now hand over to Rachel to go into more detail on the financials.

Thank you, Noel. Good morning, everyone. Let's now take a look at the financials, where we show robust growth, strong underwriting, prudent reserving and highly efficient use of capital, delivering great results today whilst laying the foundation for scalable success. Beyond Motor is building momentum by replicating Motor's proven winning formula.

Beyond Motor has scaled efficiently over the past 5 years. Turnover has grown at a CAGR of close to 30%, while customers, that's households and pets insured and annual travel customers increased by 23%, a strong trajectory achieved without compromising underwriting discipline. All 3 businesses have or are expected to for Pet, reached breakeven within 5 years of launch. Household took just 3 years following its launch in 2012. Our initial investment in that period reduced through use of reinsurance. More on that later.

Indeed, as Noel has said, since 2020, Household has consistently outperformed the market on reported combined ratio by around 5 to 6 points on average until 2023, with that advantage increasing in recent periods. This is an advantage that we expect to sustain over time as the business continues to deliver. While significant weather events impacted the combined ratio for both Admiral and the markets in 2022, the business has delivered a material improvement since then, reporting 77% and 84% in 2024 and half year '25, respectively.

Diving deeper into the financials for Household, the largest, most established Beyond Motor business, starting with reserving. We believe an important factor in delivering sustainable profit growth over time is a conservative approach to reserving. Household claims are shorter tail than Motor claims with average duration of less than 1 year. This means lower reserve volatility and smaller discounting benefits compared to Motor, where longer-tail bodily injury claims and PPOs mean the average duration is 3 to 4 years.

A cautious approach to setting best estimate reserves as well as holding risk adjustments at the upper end of the 85th to 95th percentile corridor has meant that prior period releases have been a feature of the reported loss ratio, albeit at a mid-single-digit average, a lower proportion of premium than for Motor.

Weather volatility is also naturally a driver of the Household loss ratio and profitability. A total weather allowance or budget reflected in pricing is reviewed and updated on a regular basis. Currently set at around 20 loss ratio points, it reflects historic market experience, our own data and allowances for future increases in the frequency and severity of weather events. The table shows the cost of weather since 2023 has been modestly favorable to this long-term average expectation following the adverse weather impacts in 2022.

To repeat Noel's message, we are well positioned for climate change, embedding climate considerations into our modeling, updating these regularly and ensuring resilience as weather patterns change. When normalizing for weather volatility, the current period loss ratio has improved steadily, reflecting a disciplined pricing response to inflationary trends, improved risk selection and strong operational execution. The expense ratio is also improving, benefiting from higher premiums, increased scale and the usual Admiral cost discipline. It's nearly half the average market level.

As a result, the reported combined ratio shows strong improvement with 2024 a standout year at 77%. Of course, benefiting from benign weather and prior period releases, but evidence of the ability of the business to deliver both strong growth and profitability at the same time. One of the key enablers of growth has been a capital-light structure. For household, that means smart use of both proportional and nonproportional reinsurance, providing significant capital efficiency, volatility management and flexibility to support sustainable growth, very much in line with the approach that has been so successful for Motor.

Nonproportional reinsurance is in the form of excess of loss cover, providing protection against catastrophic weather events. And in recent years, the cover kicks in for around 1 in 10-year events. On the proportional side, quota share contracts with longstanding reinsurance partners cover 70% of the book. Contracts are multiyear and are in place until at least 2027 with deals having improved over time as the household track record has strengthened. The contracts provide for a proportional sharing of premiums and other revenue, claims and expenses with Admiral benefiting from profit commission, incentivizing profitable growth.

Generally, for profitable underwriting years, profit commission emerges over a number of financial years. In the unprofitable underwriting year scenario, recoveries from quota share partners are recognized upfront and then adjust as the underwriting year develops. In some scenarios, cumulative losses for quota share partners may delay profit commission recognition in future profitable years.

Quota share has allowed the business to break even with limited investment. It has also provided some smoothing of volatility in the gross Household underwriting results, dampening the impact of adverse weather in 2022 and then enabling Admiral to earn an increasing share of the profits on the ceded portion of the book in 2024 and '25.

Ultimately, the primary goal of the Household reinsurance strategy is disciplined capital allocation, targeting at scale returns on capital in line with the group's historic averages. Reinsurance is optimized to deliver maximum capital efficiency on the current capital measurement basis, the standard formula. This combination of proportional and nonproportional reinsurance for household results in a material reduction in the solvency capital requirement.

For Travel and Pet, the approach is different. We buy excess of loss reinsurance for Travel, providing protection against significant medical losses and catastrophic events. We don't buy reinsurance for Pet. As we transition to the internal capital model, we'll continue to regularly review reinsurance strategy to ensure that we continue to optimize capital efficiency and can leverage capital benefits such as diversification as the Beyond Motor businesses scale.

Now to revisit what all of this means for the bottom line. Beyond Motor has delivered a positive profit contribution to the group since 2023 with a strongly improving trajectory over the past 3 years, partly helped by benign weather and quota share profit commission. We have already called out 2025 as an inflection point. Record profits in the first half with near-term expectations of Pet reaching breakeven and continuing growth in profits for Beyond Motor in general, subject, of course, to weather volatility.

Alistair and Scott have already stated our ambition to be a top 3 player in these markets, aiming for market shares of at least 10%. We will maintain focus on underwriting discipline, aiming to deliver market-leading combined ratios in the 80% to 90% range. Combined with continued contributions from other revenues and investment income, we expect this to mean margins in the mid-teens, once again, subject to weather volatility. We are confident that this will see Beyond Motor contributing meaningfully to group profits in the medium term.

So as I've shared with you, Beyond Motor has proven it has the ability to scale efficiently and take advantage of market conditions, leveraging the Motor winning formula of combined ratio outperformance, conservative reserving and smart use of reinsurance for volatility management and a capital-light structure. Going forward, it's all about discipline and execution to grow scale and profits, and we are committed to getting all 3 businesses delivering high returns on capital as they do this, which means attractive returns and long-term value creation for shareholders. Now back to Alistair to wrap up.

Thank you, Rachel. Okay. To summarize, today, we've provided insight into U.K. Household and Beyond Motor. We've shown that. We have quickly gained profitable scale with top 5 positions in markets with good growth prospects. We are replicating Admiral U.K.'s Motor operational excellence and financial discipline and are building a track record of outperformance and good customer outcomes for customers strengthening our position as one of the most trusted U.K. personal lines insurers.

Multi is a source of additional future customers for Home, Travel and Pet whilst enhancing Motor value by contributing to market-leading Motor retention and adding data for Motor pricing. There's plenty of headroom for growth. We continue to strengthen our capabilities in pricing, claims, customer experience and efficiency.

To conclude, Admiral Home, Travel and Pet operate in markets that currently total around GBP 11 billion. We're confident that in the medium term, each can achieve a top 3 market position whilst delivering market-leading combined ratios, equating to a market share of at least 10% with margins in the mid-teens.

Okay. So let's open to questions. What we'll do is we'll do the room first. If you can ask 2 or 3 questions each and the microphones are in the seat in front of you and you need to hold the button down, I think, to talk. Ben, you were first.

I'm Ben Cohen at RBC. Could I ask really 2 things, I guess, on home pricing trends and also what you're seeing in terms of competitive behavior in the industry. It looks like certainly you're coming from some very good levels of profitability. I guess the market has also seen profitability improve. Kind of how are you sort of making your way through, I guess, what seems like a more competitive environment? And any view in terms of when and how pricing will improve in that market?

Noel, are you happy to take that one?

Yes, sure. And -- so I think you're right. So prices have softened. I think we mentioned at the half year that we expected them to soften in H2, and they have perhaps a little bit more than we were expecting. Household hasn't typically been cyclical as a market, but there may be signs with more rational players taking up bigger share that, that might happen going forward. I think maybe a weather event or something might stimulate price increases. But for Admiral, as you'd expect, we remain disciplined with our approach to pricing with the medium term in mind.

Yes. So from a market perspective in Home, we're seeing prices sort of continued down, like we said at the half year, we're seeing that trend continue, and we're being more disciplined similar to what we do in Motor. We think about claims costs first and then manage market conditions according to optimizing value in the medium to longer term.

Could I ask a follow-on just in terms of the kind of technology investment that you've made? I'm not quite sure sort of what is kind of best-in-class systems in terms of, I guess, claims handling, but also on the front end. Could you maybe say something about how much -- what you have done is sort of unique to Admiral, how much you're sort of able to benchmark yourself against some of your peers in terms of the kind of the whole tech stack?

Let me take that one, and I'll see if others want to add. So in terms of our overall tech strategy, we use -- for Motor and Home, we use Guidewire as a system of record as a claims system. Where we are quite differentiated from the market is in terms of what we do on data and digital. So in terms of data, we use Google Cloud platform. As Noel mentioned, we collect lots of data there. We've got a rich history of data. We use a lot of machine learning models, and that's really where it's very bespoke. Similarly, on digital, we build more of our own journeys. Maybe, Scott, you could elaborate a little bit more in terms of Beyond Motor as a whole.

Yes. And I think something I would add is that we've tried to think about certain micro services for areas where we think we can have differentiation, and we connect out to third-party data sources or different third-party tech to, for example, allow a customer to take photographs or provide a video at a claim stage, and that's automatically brought into our claim system. So as I said, Guidewire is a core, but then differentiation is created through certain third-party platforms that we connect to.

Darius Satkauskas, KBW. Two questions, please. So I think you showcased that the combined ratio gap between you and the market is 5 to 6 points, I believe, since in the last 6 years or so. What would it be if you were to adjust for your insurance strategy? I'm just thinking what kind of headwind in terms of combined ratio points does your insurance strategy result in? And the second question is, when you do buy reinsurance for Household, does having a strong Motor franchise help here? And are you able to quantify, how do negotiations generally work for Household specifically when it comes to insurance purchasing?

Rachel, are you happy to take those two?

Yes, I'm happy to take those two. So when we quote combined ratios, they are reported combined ratios. They're after excess of loss reinsurance, but they don't include the impact of the proportional reinsurance or quota share. So no impact from that. And then you can assume, I mentioned the level of cover that the excess of loss attaches at. And that would -- those costs would be in that reported combined ratio. And I think that would be the same for others in the market. So no impact of reinsurance on those numbers that I gave.

And then in terms of the strong sort of Motor franchise, yes, I mentioned in the presentation that we've got longstanding relationships with strong reinsurance partners across all of our businesses. I think we enter those negotiations and conversations in a very similar way. We've seen the terms of the household in particular, improve as the business has strengthened its track record. So there's strong comparison and similarity there.

Amalie here from Deutsche Bank. Just 2 questions, if that's okay. So you spoke a lot about multi-holding and how it's more profitable and how -- or at least how it's higher retention. I mean just remind us, do you have any sort of specific targets in terms of multi-holding in terms of sort of the wider business and also now with Beyond Motor? And then on sort of weather claims, I mean, you spoke a bit about how they're a big contributor to the combined ratio. What are you doing in terms of sort of prevention and long-term sort of lowering of these weather-related claims? I mean, are you giving people sort of -- yes, how are you helping households sort of keep those claims down going forward in the sort of long term?

Okay. I'll take the first one and then Noel, if you're happy to take the second one. So in terms of multi-holding, it's an area where we've got 20% of our customers overall have multi. If you look at our Motor book, for example, over half of them are auto homeowners. And then on top of that, you have renters. So there's plenty of opportunity to go at, and that's something that through continuous improvement, we've got things like QuickQuote where you can use the data from motor, 5 questions, you can get a home insurance quote, we're driving that through. We haven't set out specific targets. I think at the full year, we disclosed 1.3 million multi-customers and at the half year, 1.5 million, so you can get a sense of some trajectory from those numbers. Noel?

Yes, sure. So in terms of pricing and underwriting for weather, first of all, lots of data. So I think our underwriting approach is reasonably prudent. We are big users of the Flood Re scheme. We participate in things like Build Back Better as well. And then Rachel has already talked about how our reinsurance strategy also reduces and supports that prudent approach. So I think it's really a combination of those things. But first and foremost, from an underwriting and pricing point of view, it's around great data and how you use that data.

Thomas Bateman from Mediobanca. Firstly, thanks, great presentation. It really show that you are streets ahead of the presentation. Now you've been able to grow these business lines from scratch and be ahead of everyone else is amazing. When you say you contribute meaningfully to group profits, what does that mean? Can you try and put a little bit more color around that in terms of percentage and nominal amount?

Second question is just on the Which? super-complaint. It's good to hear that you're engaging well with the FCA, but I see a real disconnect between what customers and Which? are saying and versus what the industry is saying. So what do you think the problem is here? What do you think the FCA might say when they respond to Which? And then finally, I'm picking one of my questions. Is there any update on the additional payment to More Th>n based on the renewals? I think you said that renewals were slightly ahead of expectations. So could you pay any more than the GBP 83 million you've already paid?

Great. I'll take the first one. And then, Scott, if you're happy to take the next 2. So in terms of contribute meaningfully, we've outlined in the presentation the size of the market. It's currently about GBP 11 billion, and we see growth. We've outlined that we feel confident in achieving top 3 market positions, which is at least 10% market share. And we've talked about the combined ratio range of 80% to 90% with investment income, other revenue takes you sort of mid-teens margins. That's basically the information that we're going to give that we think helps you understand our aspirations in these markets.

We don't -- we've never given targets and we don't want to give targets. And that's for good reason, the flexibility that we have to trade through markets where conditions can vary quickly is an important part of our competitive advantage, which is why we're not going to give any more than that.

On the FCA and the super-complaint, we've been engaging closely with both. I think our understanding is that there's a wide range of feedback given to industry players at the moment. In Admiral, we do feel we're in a strong position. In terms of what the issue is, I think there's probably 2 things I would call out. There's definitely something on customer understanding. That's about how well customers engage with their home insurance, both at purchase and retention. There's a lot you can do there to improve that, and we're making a lot of efforts to improve our journeys and make sure that declarations are really strong.

The second is really on claim strategy. And I'll give you a good example. One of the things that Which? have pulled out is cash settlement. And I think that really often creates bad outcomes in the market. The way we think about it in Admiral is cash settlement can be a good solution if the customer wants it. So customer choice, let them decide if they've got trades when they want to use, that works.

And then underneath that, you have to make sure that if the cash doesn't cover the initial claim, you're going to be willing to reopen that. It's not full and final. And I think underneath a lot of those type of best practice examples is what Which? super-complainant in particular is trying to work for. Second question is on More Th>n. And -- yes, so the initial plan was stretching, and we've now concluded the deal and the deferred consideration really related to a very stretching upside plan, which we haven't gone ahead with.

Great. I'll go over there -- behind you, Carl, sorry.

It's Derald Goh from Jefferies. So the first one, you spoke about your retention advantage in both Motor and Home being better than the market. I think Motor is more than 5%, Home is 2% or 3%. How has that trended in the last sort of 3 to 5 years? Has that widened? Has it narrowed?

And then secondly, did I hear that right, you said your home expense ratio is about half the market average. In that case, does your plan to grow policy count assume you reinvesting some of that cost advantage? Or you feel like there's enough levers for you to pull to grow without having to actually invest all those cost advantage back?

Thirdly, if I may, you said that returns on capital is sort of in line for Beyond Motor as the rest of the group. Does that imply sort of the 50% ROE level? And where are you investing any incremental amount of capital today? Is it -- would you put that at Home? Would you put that in Motor? Or do you see sort of equal attractions?

Okay. So in terms of retention, Scott, are you happy to take that one? Rachel, did you want to talk about cost advantage and return on capital?

Yes, that's fine.

Retention has been improving in the last short period. In terms of outlook, it's hard to know. It depends a little bit on cycle and pricing. Obviously, that activates shopping. But as we mentioned in the presentation, a big part of the strategy is making sure that customers engage more closely with us. And where they take more products, we see the sum of the parts is greater than the whole, and that's exactly what the strategy is all about is improving retention and bringing customers kind of closer into Admiral.

Great. On expenses, yes, I think we're proud of the expense ratio in a similar way to Motor. We think that we can improve that, increase scale within Household and Beyond Motor businesses, focus on efficiency and so on. And then that just gives us competitive advantage that gives us flexibility to trade through market conditions and grow at the right point. So I wouldn't say anything explicit around the strategy there, but our aim is to continue to improve both loss ratio and expense ratio and put us in a strong position.

On return on capital, yes, I think we've said that the target for these businesses in the longer term is return on capital in line with the group's historic averages. So your assumption is fair there. And capital allocation is a real focus for us being really disciplined. I'm not going to be talking explicitly about what that looks like or where we'll put the capital, but we talked about that, but it's a strong focus for us, and it gives us options.

Great. Thank you. Carl?

Carl Lofthagen from Berenberg. Just -- this is both on -- 2 questions on Home. I'm kind of wondering what your geographical exposure is in the U.K. I mean, are you mostly kind of concentrated in England and Wales? Or is it -- do you have -- is the book kind of in sort of urban areas? Or any kind of color you can add there?

And then kind of linked to that, are there any subsegments of the Home market where you're seeing kind of those attractive growth opportunities, whether that's content only or kind of bundling or obviously, you've talked about selling joint with kind of the Motor product, but is it -- are you just sort of waiting for that penetration of price comparison to increase? Any additional color there?

Yes, I'll take both of those. So first of all, we've got a fairly large book of business now, 2.1 million customers, and it's well diversified across the whole of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. So no real pockets in terms of biases, it's pretty well spread, which also is very important when you think about your exposure to weather, having a well-spread book that means you haven't got any areas that are overexposed.

In terms of segments and subsectors, I mentioned earlier that we've got a quote footprint of 85%, which is one of the largest in the market. So within that, there's areas of nonstandard construction and business use and things like that, which we picked up. And some of those segments also lean into mid-net worth and segments like that as well. So I don't think we need to grow and diversify beyond that. And actually, the future growth is likely to come from that growing price comparison channel and also cross-selling more to our growing Motor book. So I think we're well placed for future growth in that regard.

Will?

Will Hardcastle, UBS. Just coming back to the return on capital of these businesses getting to the similar level to the Motor book. Trying to understand, is that inclusive of sort of a capital synergy because you've got the motor book? Or is that that's on a stand-alone basis essentially? And what type of combined ratio is roughly required? What's the differential? They've got very different durations. Just trying to understand that.

And then on the reinsurance, on the household really, I guess, do we feel this is pretty optimized already? There's plenty of headroom to run on that because they might need a bit more of a time series and historical track record. Just trying to -- the Motor reinsurance quota shares look fantastic, trying to work out if there's more room for improvement on that as track record builds.

No problem. So on return on capital, yes, we'd be looking at businesses on a stand-alone basis as well as the overall group position. I can't remember the second part of that question, actually. It was -- I mean, look, we've talked about the historic progress of what combined ratios we've delivered in Home. We expect something similar for Travel. I wouldn't be more specific than that, I think, in terms of the return on capital.

Reinsurance, we're really comfortable. We're really pleased with the deals that we have. There's naturally probably a little bit more scope to further optimize over time as we strengthen the track record of the businesses. But yes, we're very comfortable with those deals.

Great. Yes, Tom.

Thomas Bateman from Mediobanca. Just -- I was just interested in your comments on the cyclicality of the Home market that it wasn't cyclical before and now it's looking more cyclical. I guess I was a bit surprised that it feels more cyclical now. Is that due to price comparison websites because we have had some consolidation. I don't know maybe you could square the circle there.

And the second thing, I think I saw yesterday that Tide was launching something with you guys, and they called it Admiral Business, and I thought you might talk about that today. Could you just delve a little bit more? I think it's small business insurance. How could that feed into you in the long-term?

Yes. On the first one, predicting any cycle is always tricky. I think what we saw for many years was price comparison was a growing channel for Home insurance, and we didn't see much movement in prices. And then we saw a movement in response to the weather events in 2022, as Noel outlined.

I think going forward now, there's a question of will it become more cyclical like Motor or will it take weather events to sort of trigger shifts. We haven't got a crystal ball. So that's something that we're watching very carefully. And as ever, we'll price according to our claims experience and then adjust to the market as we need. Yes, in terms of the Tide partnership, not presenting on today, it's part of the Admiral Pioneer business that's exploring commercial. So exciting to have partnerships like that going on and good fresh learning in that business. Ben?

Two quick ones, maybe if I could. Firstly, I mean, it sounds like you're quite happy with your footprint. But obviously, the More Th>n deal, I guess, has been pretty successful. Are there other books or other capabilities that you would like to add inorganically?

And the second question was, could you just talk about underlying claims inflation in the different markets? And maybe, I guess, the risk of -- absent obviously weather, but just the risk of shock in any of these areas from, I guess, something outside of your control in terms of those assumptions?

Scott, are you happy to take both of those?

Yes. So the first question is on organic or more inorganic growth. We're firstly, hugely focused on organic. That's the big an underlying part of the plan. The way we think about inorganic and More Th>n had all of these was 3 components. We're looking for scale. So there has to be a reasonable size. We're looking for capabilities. And the More Th>n deal had that, particularly with Pet, where we're able to build their own claim system. And we're looking for cultural alignment, and that's obviously people, but it's also the way they've treated customers, brands.

So as I said, we're focused on organic. But if opportunities came up that tick those 3, which the More Th>n deal did, we would definitely take a look, but we'd obviously hold a high bar. Second question on inflation. I briefly talk about Pet and Travel and maybe, Noel can comment on Home, the way we think about inflation in Pet is the vet practices have covered or have been increasing prices for over like double digits for most of the last decade. We saw that come down last year, partly in response to some of the indications that have been provided by the CMA review.

From an outlook perspective, if the findings from that review in March '26 come out that encourages more transparency on pricing, but then also encourages things like rate cards, we think that will hopefully soften inflation for Pet. And that I think is a good thing. It makes the pet insurance more affordable. It will increase retention. On Travel, it's a short tail. So obviously, we do consider inflation, but it's less of a risk.

Yes. Very similar principles, I think, in home, I think we signed posted half year single sort of mid-digit claims inflation and that's stabilizing, and that's what we've seen. In terms of the impact weather can have, definitely can cause challenges within your claims area just because of the volatility and the potential scale. But we think we manage that well through great underwriting and pricing and the use of data. And then as Rachel has outlined a couple of times, the strategy around reinsurance to, I guess, reduce that volatility.

Will, did you have?

Hardcastle, UBS again. I'm just trying to -- I think you said the multiproduct is now 1.5 million customers. Are they almost 100% driven from Motor going into Home, Travel or Pet? Or is there any cross the other way? Is there any way you can give us what was the first product percentages roughly?

I don't think we're going to give you product percentages. I think most of multi is Motor first, but not all. And what we've talked about is we've got 1.5 million unique customers, which is about 20% on a unique customer basis. And really about half of those are Motor and Home within that multi. So hopefully, that gives you a bit of color.

Just to comment. To give you an indication of the opportunity, the way we think about building businesses is to really focus on making them independently strong first. So if you take Home, for example, that started over a decade ago, and we've really been focusing on multi for 5 years. As Al said, it's about 1/3 of the home book now, and that's going well and the trajectory is strong.

For Pet and Travel, they're far less developed on that journey. So -- and also awareness of those products within Admiral is less. So you can think about that as the start of a journey with a lot of opportunity to come. And some of the investments we made in technology, single customer view and those type of things, bring it together to allow us to really accelerate that next year.

And just a quick follow-up. Is there any early signs that -- I'm not sure it's mature enough to get a data point of what the margin advantage is, not expense and clearly, being expense because of retention, but thinking about the loss ratio advantage of a multiproduct customer.

We -- what we get from multi is you get an advantage in terms of acquisition costs, and you also get an advantage in terms of more data from the customer having multiple products with us, which enables you to price more competitively. So some of the benefits that we have, there's a sharing between performance and actually giving the customer that competitiveness. That plus the convenience of multi is what boost retention.

Youdish Chicooree from Autonomous Research. In your opening comments, you talked about the market potentially growing from GBP 11 billion to GBP 14 billion by 2030, I believe. Could you tell us like how does that split between Household, Travel and Pet, especially in light of the fact that you mentioned that maybe Household will become a bit more cyclical going forward? So that's my first question.

And then secondly, on reinsurance in Home, I think on excess of loss, you mentioned that you're covered for 1 in 10-year event. So in terms of million sterling, what level of loss would that typically cover? And then finally, on the More Th>n portfolio, the figures you provided, does that -- are those for 9 months or 6 months?

Scott, if you're happy to take the first and the third, and Rachel, if you can take the second one.

There's a quick answer to the second one at the moment. I don't think that we've disclosed the pound million. Obviously, the book grows and so on. So I won't give a figure today.

There's not a huge difference in the growth assumptions in the markets between the 3. We expect all 3 to grow. Claims inflation is obviously something that we think will drive the whole market. That will be slightly bigger, as we said before, mid to single digit -- mid to high single digits. And we think because of consolidation, price rationalization is strong, and you'll see premiums follow. There's also an increase in overall homeownership and things in the U.K. as well.

Pet is slightly different, where we do think the penetration of that market might increase. In addition, because of the vet practices, there are slightly higher inflation measures there. Travel has been very consistent for the last few years, and we wouldn't expect that to change too much. On More Th>n the figures are 12-month figures.

Great. Are there any questions on the phone? Okay. Well, thank you very much, everyone, for coming to join us today. Thank you.

Well, good morning, and welcome, everybody, to Admiral Group Half Year 2025 results. Once again, we delivered excellent financial performance, growth and strategic progress across the group. As usual, I will be sharing our main highlights. Geraint will provide us more detail on our financial performance. Alistair will talk to us about the excellent results in U.K. Insurance, and Costantino will bring to life for us our progress overseas.

So in the first 6 months of the year, we delivered a record profit of GBP 521 million. That is almost 70% increase year-on-year, while at the same time, adding 1 million customers to our book. That is a 10% increase versus last year. The main driver of this profit increase was U.K. Motor insurance that was also supported by positive claims trends. But it was nice to see material growing contribution coming from different parts of the business and in particular, U.K. Household and Admiral Money both doubled their profits, while at the same time growing and building on their strong track record.

As we anticipated in March, we announced the sale of our U.S. business, Elephant, due to complete later this year. It will be sad to say goodbye to our colleagues, but we do think that's in the best interest of all our stakeholders. We also made great progress in our -- enhancing our data and technology capability as well as improved our customer experience, reflecting in strong Net Promoter Score above 50%.

As very typical and usual of Admiral, we maintain pricing discipline in a softening market, and this will put us on a strong footing for further growth when the cycle will turn and the time will be right. We have a strong capital position and strong fundamentals to continue to build on this strong track record.

A bit more in detail now. The first 6 months of 2025 were very much a continuation of the second half of last year. We stay focused on our strategy and execute well across the board with progress in all the different parts of the business. In our largest business, U.K. Motor, we remain close and reacted fast to market trends. We decreased prices to reflect improved frequency and reduced claims inflation, but we did so with measure and less than the market.

Our historical discipline resulted in 3 points improvement of combined ratio and a 5% customer growth year-on-year. Beyond motor, we're extremely pleased with our progress in the U.K. We continue to deliver strongly on our dual strategic objective, to grow at pace other lines of business with also 30% more customers in travel, household and pet insurance versus 1 year ago, while at the same time, deliver good margins with a combined ratio for this half year of 88%. In Europe, we also successfully delivered on our two main objectives. First, to turn around ConTe, our Italian business, with fast recovery towards profitability. And second, to continue growing profitably in France, where we can leverage on L'olivier's strong position in the direct market.

Overall, good continuous progress in our diversification strategy with majority of our business increasing contribution to the bottom line and only a few still in the investment phase. A fil rouge across the group is the relentless focus on ensuring that our data and tech capabilities are market leading to continue to support our key competitive advantage in underwriting and in providing excellent service to our customers.

In the last months, we have continued to optimize our machine learning models in production, not only in pricing, where we already had strong foundations and scale, but also beyond pricing and with particular focus on claims, where the strong inflation of the last few years increased even more our sense of urgency to deliver innovation and to deliver most cost effectively for our customers. We're excited about the potential of GenAI to improve our customer experience, to support our agents and increase automation. We're setting strong foundations for the adoption of it across the board with the first models in production and several live pilots with promising initial results. Foundational to data adoption excellence are stronger data platforms, and those have been strengthened both in the U.K. and in Europe.

Another pillar of our strategy is to continue growing our EV portfolio with strong financials and stay close to other relevant motor market trends. And we're exploring new propositions for young driver with Veygo and developing new capabilities in commercial motor, also leveraging our partnership with Flock. But beyond financial and strategic progress, there is so much for us to be proud of, primarily our customers that are recognizing our effort with strong Net Promoter and feedback scores. Most importantly, we continue to deliver accessible and affordable products for the majority of the population.

Second, our colleagues that continue to rate us as one of the best place to work for with Admiral ranking top 25 worldwide and #2 in the U.K. Our people engagement is also reflected in the high retention of talent and competence. Our commitment to diversity also remain as strong as ever. Finally, it's been pleasing to see our AAA score reaffirmed by MSCI a few days ago as we continue to progress on our net zero transition plan and on our science-based targets.

Before closing this section, I would like to take a step back with you and look at Admiral long-term trajectory. As you see in this graph, in the last 10 years, we delivered a 9% PBT CAGR and delivered return to our shareholders that is 4x the FTSE 100. This track record is built on 5 pillars. Number one, strong technical expertise in claims and underwriting, combined with sharp focus on expenses and continuous innovation, particularly in the use of data. This is what underpins our large combined ratio advantage versus market.

Second, an extremely capital-efficient model enabled by strong long-lasting reinsurance partnerships. This supports our growth and a great return on capital for our shareholders. Third, a disciplined approach to investment and a prudent reserving approach. We always value our shareholder money and are killed to being resilient in our account, managing the business as it was our own. And maybe that's also because we are all shareholder in Admiral.

Fourth, a proven agility and ability to navigate better than market, a strong industry cycle, changing regulations and other external challenges. Last few years have been an example of this. We managed to flex the business trajectory and navigated these changes successfully. Finally, or maybe first, our culture. I'm deeply convinced that this is the most important competitive advantage that we have as it underpins all the points above. And it's our colleague commitment to our customer and the business that allowed this strong set of results. And I would like to take again this opportunity to thank them for their great work.

That's all from me for now, and Geraint will share with us more detail on our financial performance.

It's my weekend effort. Thanks, Milena. Good morning, everyone. I'll cover some of the financial highlights from a quite positive first half of the year. I cover the main drivers of the group profit, plus a strong capital position and the much higher interim dividend.

So let's get going with some of the highlights. So pretax profit was up by 69% to GBP 521 million, and earnings per share was up similarly to 132.5p a share. Excluding the impact of Ogden on H2 last year, those are our highest 6-month profit figures ever. U.K. Motor was the key driver, reporting a significantly higher underwriting result. And there were also pleasing contributions from around the group as we'll see. And just to note, all these figures are now continuing operations basis until they exclude Elephant.

Return on equity was extremely high, close to 60% as the big profit increase significantly outweighed the higher equity. And we continue to report a robust and very satisfactory solvency position, net of a very large increase in the interim dividend of over 60% to 115p a share, maintaining our usual approach to dividends, so quite a positive set of results.

On the bottom half of the page shows turnover, customer numbers and loan balances. Turnover is just over GBP 3 billion and was flat against the first half of last year, although that half was 43% up on the first half of 2023 and so it was a big comparative period. Through the presentation, we'll see that the drivers were reductions in turnover in Italy and U.K. Motor, offset by a large increase in UK Household. As Milena has mentioned, we added 1 million new customers to the group over the last 12 months, seeing growth in every business with the exception of ConTe in Italy.

As you know, the total focus of our team in Italy was on restoring profitability. And a consequence of that right now is a smaller portfolio. And last, but definitely not least, Admiral Money's on-balance sheet loans increased by around 0.25 to GBP 1.3 billion and a very good first half. And that business also now services around GBP 200 million of off-balance sheet loans as well.

Next, on to the components of group profit. And these next two pages will show the breakdown of the group pretax result by business against last year. Quick comment on the group ratios to start. We report a broadly flat and very positive loss ratio for the group at around 57% and we saw a decent improvement in expense ratio period-on-period. UK Motor, UK Household and Europe, all delivering better expense ratios in this first half, which is good to see.

UK Insurance increased overall profit by GBP 221 million, all lines delivering higher results. Home Insurance profit was more than double, a really pleasing first half with good growth in revenue and customers and another very decent combined ratio of 84%. Travel and Pet in aggregate broke even, which was positive, and I'll talk about UK Motor shortly. In Europe, as you can see, the result was flat half-on-half, just under breakeven. Within that total, European motor, which is the very large majority of the business, was also flat but at just over breakeven.

Costantino will cover in more detail, but the key points are continued profits and growth in France, good progress in Spain, notably on broker distributed business and very encouraging signs of profit recovery in Italy. Admiral Money, an extremely positive first half with profit more than doubling from GBP 7 million to GBP 16 million. The result did benefit from a GBP 10 million net profit impact from selling around GBP 150 million of previously originated loans from the unsecured loan portfolio, and that won't repeat in H2. But selling newly originated loans will be an ongoing feature of the business, with GBP 90 million of loans sold during H1.

As I mentioned earlier, the on-balance sheet loans balance grew by around 25% over the 12 months to GBP 1.3 billion and that growth contributed to higher interest income in this half. We see promising early signs in terms of car finance volumes following the relaunch of that product last year. Admiral Money continues to see positive credit loss trends and of course, we retain an appropriate and prudent provision for losses on the balance sheet. The share scheme costs were higher because of the higher share price this half versus last and the other items were positively distorted in H1 last year, when we realize the profit on the sale of Insurify shares we received when we sold Compare.com. There's more analysis of that line in the appendix.

Next, let's take a closer look at the really positive UK Motor result. This is a summarized income statement plus the key ratios with some observations on the key changes. Starting with turnover. That was GBP 2.3 billion in this half, which is GBP 2.4 billion last half. And there are two drivers of that small decrease. One is a shift in the sales mix in favor of renewals for away from new business as the new business market was smaller in size and more competitive. And the second was our reduced prices over the last year or so, which leads to lower average premiums at new business and renewal.

The main contributor to the much higher overall profit was the big increase in the underwriting result, which was up by GBP 180 million, and that was mainly due to much higher premiums from the 2024 underwriting year earning through and consequently, a better combined ratio. As expected, the quota share reinsurance cost was also notably lower this half due to the much lower reinsurance assets on the balance sheet at the start of the period compared to last. And that 2024 underwriting year is also the main contributor to the higher profit commission income.

On the key ratios, firstly, we see a better expense ratio, which benefits from the big increase in earned premiums, a slightly better current period loss ratio positively impacted again by 2024 and slightly lower but still strong reserve releases. Let's dig a bit deeper into UK Motor loss ratios. And this chart shows UK Motor booked loss ratios by underwriting year on a discounted basis. Alistair will cover the current claims trends shortly, but on the back years, we see continued good development. And as we reported back in March 2023 and in particular, 2024, will be extremely good underwriting use. Our estimate of claims burn cost inflation for '25 versus '24 is somewhere in the 5% to 7% range, including a small reduction in frequency versus last H1.

And because of the combination of that inflation and lower prices, 2025 will be a lower margin year than 2024 for Admiral, and we believe the market -- we still project a profitable year for Admiral, of course. And then on the book loss ratios, the first discounted booking of 2025 is at 73% or 79% undiscounted. And that's actually in line with 2024 at the same point. But because of the higher ultimate loss ratio we expect for 2025, the book ratio for '25 is very likely to increase in H2 as the lower premiums start to earn through.

In the claims reserve, we've opted to hold the risk adjustment strength in the balance sheet at the maximum level, but we expect that to start moving modestly down within the coming year. And finally, reserve releases, they continue to be an important element in the income statement at 13% of earned premiums this half. Don't forget that earned premium was significantly higher in this half compared to last half, partly accounting for that lower percentage. Anyone that's panicking that they don't see the other chart on ultimate loss ratios that we normally show here, please refer to the appendix.

Moving now to the capital position and interim dividend and starting with capital on the left. These are the movements in the solvency ratio from full year to half year. Key points: Firstly, slightly lower capital generation as expected, given the lower underwriting margins in 2025. Second, growth, albeit lower growth in the capital requirement. And then thirdly, the interim dividend, which almost offsets the capital generated. Our closing position at 194%, obviously, is still very satisfactory. On the internal model, we continue to progress in line with our plan towards full application. And the next important piece of news will be when we make that step.

And then on the right-hand side, the interim dividend. As you can see, we're paying 115p a share. That's around 60% higher than last year's interim and a nice round 50% CAGR over the past couple of halves; 115p, just under 90% of the first half earnings. No change to report in our approach to dividends. But just a note that we will start buying shares in the market for our share plans, either in the fourth quarter of this year or the first half of next year in anticipation of share awards and share vesting in 2026. And so as we flagged, the special dividend, we'll start to see the impact of that in 2026.

A couple of comments just to finish off. Firstly, very pleasing set of financials for the first half of 2025 led as usual by our UK Motor business, but with further positive results in other parts of the group, notably UK Home Insurance and Admiral Money. And in line with that significantly higher profit, we've declared a much bigger interim dividend, but still, of course, maintain a very satisfactory and strong solvency position. And then on the outlook for the rest of 2025, in terms of top line and customers, we expect to grow in all our operations, obviously, subject to how our markets play out and probably with the exception of Italy.

Turnover in H2 is likely to be a bit below H1 as was the case last year and that's due to lower average premiums and some seasonality. Then in terms of profit, the group results will be well supported by the continuing earning through of the 2024 underwriting year in UK Motor. We project continued good results from the businesses highlighted just now, UK Home Insurance, Admiral Money plus L'olivier in France. And we expect a much better Italian result for the full year compared to last subject to the profit recovery there continuing.

Over now to Alistair to give us more insight into the UK Insurance business and market.

Thank you, Geraint. Good morning, everyone. Let's look at our excellent UK Insurance results. We grew customer numbers by 13% year-on-year, maintained revenue and reported a 60% increase in profits. In Motor, we grew to 5.8 million customers. And in Beyond Motor, we now ensure over 3.5 million homes, holidays and pets for our customers, all driven by giving customers great value and service, which also resulted in our #1 position on Trustpilot.

We're very happy with the More Than integration, which is nearing completion. 339,000 home and pet customers have renewed with us in the last 12 months. The More Than brand is live for pet new business customers, and we expect a positive impact on earnings from H2 '25 onwards. As a result, we delivered profits of GBP 584 million, mostly driven by Motor and contributed to by another record profit for Home and continued profit growth for Travel.

Let's look at what drove our strong results in Motor, starting with motor claims trends. There's a continuation of favorable '24 motor market claims trends, decreasing frequency and severity continuing to moderate. Frequency decreased year-on-year, reflecting vehicle safety features on more vehicles, increased road safety measures and favorable weather. Severity inflation continues to moderate. We estimate mid- to high single-digit inflation. Damage severity benefited from stable secondhand car prices and more normal repair cost inflation. Bodily injury inflation is stable.

Together, frequency and severity trends drive claims burn costs, the average claims cost per policy. The resulting better-than-expected claims burn costs since the start of '24 has contributed to falling market premiums. Admiral continues to benefit from years of cumulative experience and expertise. We consistently achieved good outcomes and Motor claims NPS of over 55 whilst maintaining claims cost discipline. In line with the FCA multi-firm review, we've completed our analysis of total loss valuations. We will be taking action to rectify some historic cases and have increased our total provision to GBP 50 million. This is around 3% of the total loss claims costs over the relevant period.

Moving to Motor pricing. Admiral managed margins and volumes well in H1 in the face of continued reductions in market prices. In the first half of '25, we saw motor market -- the motor market continued to respond to better-than-expected claims trends by reducing prices, with slightly slower decreases in Q2 than in Q1, as you see on the left-hand side. The price indices use different data points, but the average reflects market movements this half and it shows prices down 7%. Admiral Times Top, which is the percentage of times we are cheapest on price comparison sites, a measure of our competitiveness is illustrated on the right-hand side.

At the start of '24, we became very competitive when prices and new business volumes were at their peak. Since then, market premiums have fallen in response to improved claims experience. We've also reduced prices but by slightly less than the market, somewhat reducing our competitiveness. We welcome that the FCA confirmed that motor premium increases in '23 and '24, were driven by claims costs and that their interim update on premium finance recognize that premium finance allows customers to spread costs helping affordability. We're confident our premium finance product provides fair value. We have a competitive APR of 15%, and that compares favorably to other sources of finance. So a good first half for UK Motor.

Let's look -- move on to look at another step-up for Household where we delivered a combined ratio of 84% and a record first half profit of GBP 25 million. In the first half, Household market claims burn costs continued to moderate due to lower frequency and relatively benign weather. As a result, after peaking in Q3 '24, market premiums continued to decrease in the first half of '25. For Admiral, we're keen to maintain pricing discipline, and our price decreases were more modest than the market. We continue to drive growth through a combination of More Than, strong retention and multicover and we're pleased to see an improved current year loss ratio.

Although H1 weather has been relatively benign, it has been particularly dry. So we've included provision for elevated subsidence risk. This combination of good growth and margins resulted in a record half year profit for Household of GBP 25 million. We're engaging with the FCA on their review into household claims handling. Admiral is well placed to navigate both market and regulatory dynamics with strong pricing, claims and customer centricity and a disciplined approach to balancing growth and margin. We're very pleased with our recent Household performance. Just a reminder, save the date. As we mentioned in March, we'll hold a deep dive session on our household business in November.

A very strong first half across UK Insurance overall, so now let's look ahead. Starting with Motor. We expect market claim severity inflation in the second half to be similar to the first, although macro volatility causes some uncertainty. We expect claims frequency to remain stable or gradually decrease due to the long-term trend of improving vehicle technology with some uncertainty due to weather. More positive than expected claims trends have led market premium decreases of more than 17% since the start of '24. Going forward, we expect premiums need to increase in the near future or we'll see a marked deterioration in the '26 market combined ratio. A delay in market premium increases will mean larger increases are needed.

In Household, market claims inflation is broadly stable, but with an increased subsidence risk in H2. Assuming relatively benign weather, we expect to see continued reductions in market prices in the second half. For Admiral, our pricing will remain disciplined, reflecting market claims outlook, whether for home and our own trends. Looking beyond trading, we remain confident of driving sustainable profitable growth over the medium term, driven by three areas of focus. First, our customer centricity, delivering great products and service with strong NPS and very competitive prices. Second, motor operational excellence, balancing continued growth with market-leading combined ratio performance, both benefiting from strong retention. Third, building a strong track record of sustainable profitable growth in home, travel and pet, helping 1.5 million customers with two or more products. So a great set of results, and we remain confident of driving sustainable, profitable growth over the medium term.

And now over to Costi to talk more about our international results.

Thank you, all. Good morning, everyone. To compete with Geraint, I've also put my best picture top right. So the story of our European business this half is one of a turnaround and good progress overall on our strategy. The year-on-year result is flat with a small profit, but we recovered this semester from a significant loss reported for the full year 2024, thanks to disciplined execution across our markets. Let's see the highlights.

Our focus has been on improving margins, careful risk selection and increasing efficiency. We have also made good progress on our key strategic initiatives. The turnaround in our bottom line over the past six months was driven by targeted performance across our markets. Our French business has continued its positive track record of profitable growth. We have made significant strides in our recovery plan for Italy and we are making good strategic progress with intermediary distribution channels, both in Italy and Spain. Underpinning all of this is our continued investments in analytics and technology to strengthen our pricing capabilities,, make our claims processes more effective and better serve our customers. Indeed, we are maintaining a leading position in the customer service scores across our markets.

Let's look at the numbers in more detail. Our French business, L'olivier, continues its good performance. For the past several years, the business has delivered double-digit growth with a very good combined ratio, thanks to our solid foundations in risk selection and focus on direct acquisition. This half, we again achieved double-digit top line growth, increasing our customer base to over 0.5 million, while maintaining an excellent combined ratio. We expect to continue on this positive trajectory of building more scale and delivering good margins.

Moving to Italy. We executed a significant turnaround in ConTe. As I mentioned at the full year results presentation, we faced challenges, but our response was swift and effective. As you can see from the chart, we materially reduced our losses, improving the combined ratio by 13 points. We took strong pricing actions, pruned the portfolio, shifted to lower risk segments and implemented cost savings. While this necessary discipline led to a planned reduction in our policy count, the benefits are already clear, and I expect them to materialize fully in the coming quarters. ConTe has consistently delivered profit for a decade prior to 2024. And I believe the actions taken have put ConTe back on a solid footing to return to be profitable and to grow in the near term.

In Spain, our underwriting discipline continues to deliver profitability in the direct business. We are also seeing a promising trajectory in the brokers and ING Bank distribution channels, which have reduced their losses while growing volumes. The groundwork laid by these two more recent initiatives provides a strong foundation while all signs confirming that we have multiple avenues for profitable growth in the medium term.

Next. Sometimes it happens. We'll wait because I don't think people from home see the slides. Keep going. Okay. So now I would like to dive on how we are solving for scale and efficiency. Two key strategic challenges to compete successfully in Europe. To scale, we are transitioning to a multichannel model. We cannot rely solely on the direct market as most customers still shop off-line in Europe. And this move expands our market potential. We began this transition in Italy and Spain, while in France, we continue to focus on a direct market, strong momentum. After a learning period, we redesigned our products. This closed a planned temporary drop in policies as shown in the chart that you cannot see, but you have your presentation.

The new products -- yes, here we are. The new products launched a year ago were well received by quality intermediaries and their customers, showing good growth in policy count year-on-year, and also overall loss ratio is improving. This trend confirms our strategy is working and supports profitable medium-term growth. Strong execution will be now key to realizing this outlook.

Now on the efficiency. To be competitive and achieve good margins, efficiency is imperative, and we are making good progress. Our expense ratios are improving or stable. This is a strong result for ConTe, which held its ratio stable despite lower earned premiums. These improvements are driven by digitalization, automation and artificial intelligence. Our investments in these areas continue to deliver and I expect more opportunities ahead.

To conclude, our European operations are emerging stronger and more disciplined. Looking ahead, we will continue to execute our plan with precision and underwriting discipline, targeting a healthy trading margins to deliver growing profitability over the near future. Thank you. Now I hand over to Milena for the wrap-up.

Thank you, Costi. So to summarize, we continue to deliver consistently year after year strong financial performance and growth. And beyond the excellent results in U.K. Motor, there is so much that we delivered across the group in the last 6 months from a successful integration of More Than to the sale of our U.S. business, strong turnaround in Italy, growth in every other part of the business, the sales -- I mentioned already the sales of our U.S. business, our first forward flow deal in Admiral Money and the list is still long. So looking ahead, we continue to be focused on 3 strategic objectives: maintaining a leading position with a very substantial combined ratio advantage versus market in U.K. motor and grow when the time is right. Second, to grow at pace and profitably other lines of business in the U.K. with a more synergic approach and a single view of the customer. And third, scaling our direct business in Europe, while at the same time, building larger opportunity for the future through different distribution channel.

In addition, we constantly develop our franchise. We continue to focus on our customer, continue to focus on our people and embrace and embed new data and technology to future-proof our competitive advantage. We remain agile and adapt to changing market condition and navigate industry cycle with discipline, putting ourselves on a strong footing for further growth. And more in general, we remain very confident and excited about the future prospect of the business in the future.

Thank you very much. And that's all from us for now. I'm very happy to take questions from audience first and then from home. Please take the mic and press the button and hold it if it's possible.

Darius Satkauskas, KBW. Two questions, please. Well, actually, three questions, if I may. First one is have you noticed any changes in the motor market following the recent wave of consolidation? Then obviously, no one knows the future, but are you seeing anything in the market that would lead you to believe that the turn in the cycle is near? Or can it continue for quite a few years from here? And lastly, what are you seeing in regards to the claims inflation when it comes to electric vehicles in comparison to the rest of the book? I'm particularly interested in how the burn and spare part costs compare. And do you feel you have more pricing power when it comes to these EVs, so what is going on with the claims inflation is less challenging?

Do you want to take the first two and I comment on the third?

Yes, sure. So in terms of consolidation in the U.K. market, I don't think there's anything that we'd call out. We remain very focused on maintaining our core disciplines, pricing claims and managing the cycle well and still see plenty of headroom for medium-term growth. In terms of the turn in the cycle, in terms of what we've seen so far, really a continuation of trends that I mentioned in Q2, so prices still decreasing but more modestly than we saw prior to Q2. And -- but as I said, what we're seeing now is we believe that the market has behaved rationally to this point and passing on the benefit of better-than-expected claims costs back in the form of lower premiums.

But in the near future, we will need to see price increases in order to keep pace with forward-looking inflation or else, we'll see a marked deterioration in the 2026 combined ratio. We, for Admiral, remain very happy with the margins that we've written in '25. They're not as high as the very high margins we saw in '24, but we're happy with those margins, and we'll continue to maintain pricing discipline.

And then lastly, in terms of electric vehicles, we put a lot of focus in terms of electric vehicles, both in terms of pricing and claims, making sure they're very joined up. We work very closely with our repair network in order that we're managing those repair costs and understanding the methods for different manufacturers, and we're comfortable with the performance, we see good performance on these electric vehicle segment.

Maybe I will just add that the electric vehicles for us is a priority to grow the book, and we are growing on the electric vehicles portfolio more than in the rest of the book. We think we have a strong financial performance, and it's something we're going to continue to develop in the future.

Carl Lofthagen from Berenberg. Two quick questions. Just on the UK Motor policy count, which is up 1% in the period. Are you able to give a little bit of color on which kind of subsegments of the market you're taking share? And slightly longer -- kind of longer-term question. The U.K. government is planning to launch a pilot for autonomous vehicles next year and is planning to change it to the law in 2027. Has there been any changes kind of, I guess, to your outlook on EVs and your strategy, I guess, because the government has been pretty clear that it wants to be at the forefront of this?

Do you want to take the first and I'll comment on the second.

Yes, sure. So growth of 1% over the first half is driven by -- and you were asking about mix. I think, first of all, I'd call out increased renewals this half. So we grew very strongly in the first half of '24. And one of the drivers of our growth in the first half has been a bigger renewal book and strong retention on retaining those customers. New business, we write across the market, but areas that we give particular focus to and we're strong at is the electric vehicles, as we were mentioning there, and we've also seen growth in telematics.

I would say more in general in terms of autonomous vehicles and technology advancement, there's been good progress in the last year. I would say 1 million in the U.S. is still predominantly a U.S. phenomenon. U.K., Europe is quite behind compared to U.S., but we do see this coming, not be really material in the short term. And as for us, our strategy is really to concentrate on being good underwriter of some of the components that may change. So for example, working with data from connected vehicles and make sure that we stay very close to market trends. We've done some experiments in the past, and we continue to deliver those skills that we think are going to be relevant in the future. I think it's 1, 2 and 3.

Andreas van Embden, Peel Hunt. I just had a question about your pricing power. I mean, rationally, if you're projecting 5% to 7% claims inflation going forward, I mean you would be increasing rates at least in that range. Is that something you can do in the U.K.? Or do you need competitors to follow your lead? That's my first question.

The second question is on your initial loss picks. I think you were alluding to the second half of the year, you would need to increase the initial loss pick to the booked on discounted one even further. And you booked at 79, I believe, at the end of H1. I just wondered how much more do you think you will need to increase that sort of initial loss pick? Are we going back to 2023 levels or somewhere between '24 and '23?

On the first one, I would say that our approach has always been historically to price based on our own claims strength. So independently of what market does and competitor does, we look at -- with the trend. We have large scale and try to be very close and react very fast. And there are -- there has been instances in the past, which we increased price substantially or decreased substantially as we see fit, depending on how the claims evolve. So we'll continue to do what is needed. And that particular circumstance, I think Alistair already mentioned, there is a bit of a stabilization of frequent inflation -- sorry, of severity inflation and frequency is a bit lower than last year, but we will continue to do what we think is right for the price.

On how '25 develops, I think it would be a bit early to give to the penny answer to that. We certainly expect that the book loss ratio in H2 will increase probably by at least a few points, but it will depend on how things develop in the second half. What you saw with '24, its 12-month booking was lower than its 6-month booking, as that underwriting you obviously got better as higher average premiums earned through. For '25, we'd expect to see slightly the opposite effect, and you'll see those 2 underwriting years diverge at the 12-month point. But we'll sort of talk to you in 6 months about how exactly that develops, but certainly a few points at least.

Vash Gosalia, Goldman Sachs. So I had 2 questions. One, just continuing on the EV point. Could you help unbox that a little bit more and tell us what is the differential in average prices between an ICE versus EV and even a little bit on the margins front on the combined ratio, if they are different in which direction.

And then the other question was a bit on your customer base or basically policy count. Just trying to think around what, in your opinion, would be a driver of that policy count, which is exogenous to Admiral. So in what sort of environment would you expect you to just basically get more customers versus less?

I think on EV, what I will say is that we're very happy with financial performance and lifetime value of our EV portfolio. And we also think it's very important for us to continue to get scale and learn about pricing and underwriting and claims as Alistair was saying, as well as evolving our proposition. So we have new features to cover battery charge and so forth.

Going in terms -- in terms of average premium, I think it's difficult to unpack because the reality is that the portfolio of customers that adopt electric vehicles is slightly different from the rest of the portfolio. So you have a bit more presence in urban area, for example, versus suburban area, a bit more affluent customers. So there are some of those difference that plays in terms of average premium. But the way we price is really based on the lifetime value, the combined ratio, and we're very pleased with the performance, and it's a part of the book. We want to continue to grow and faster than the rest. The second question, do you want to -- was the policy count drivers outside the -- you mean outside the claims inflation.

Basically, I'm just trying to understand what sort of impact will the general market environment have on your policy count. So I'm sure you will try to grow your policy count either through pricing or just basically doing what you do already very well. But what can change in the market, which will help you any tailwinds or headwinds?

So in terms of the market, as Milena has also alluded to, we start by looking at claims costs and making sure that we're taking that into account in our pricing. But then we'll look over the medium term and we'll say what's the right balance of margin and growth. And if you look at 2025 -- 2024 in the first half when prices were high and we saw good margins, we became very competitive and reduced our prices, and we grew by 15% in 2024. In the first half of '25, we've reduced our prices less than the market because we thought that was the right thing to do for claims costs, and we've grown more modestly.

So I think over the medium term, we think that managing our growth according to first and forward claims dynamics and then the market dynamics is the best way for sustainable long-term growth. And then in parallel with that, we're investing in pricing, claims capabilities and customer experience and efficiencies in order to ensure that we have as much firepower for growth over the longer term as possible.

Youdish Chicooree from Autonomous Research. My first question is on U.K. Motor claims frequency. I think there was almost like a 10% decline last year, which took the claims frequency almost 20% below pre-pandemic levels. I think earlier in the year with your full year results, you said that was somewhat unexpected and you guided to a potential rise this year. This has not materialized. So I was just wondering whether you've changed your view of claims frequency and we are now at a different level and what factors have driven that? So that's my first question.

My second question is just a technical question on capital. There was a 14 percentage point drag from a higher SCR due to growth in Beyond U.K. Motor. Can you provide some details around that, whether that's due to the More Than portfolio and whether we should probably incorporate higher CR going forward?

Thanks. Take the first.

Yes. So on claims frequency, in terms of the market trends, we saw it come down quite a bit in 2024, as you say. And in 2025, we're really seeing it down year-on-year, so versus the first half of '24 and broadly similar to what it was in the second half of '24, so that decrease. We mentioned at the full year that we've seen quite a decrease and some of that could be weather. That's really how we look at claims. We're always slightly on the conservative side, and we don't want to bank things until we've got a bit more longer-term experience.

And in terms of the longer-term trends, the trends that we see driving that frequency have been in place for a number of years. So vehicle technology improves frequency, road safety measures, things like speed limits have helped. And so that's been a sort of a long-term trend. What you also see on the other side of the vehicle technology is more of that technology in vehicles can mean collisions costs a little bit more. So it has a sort of a slight counter on severity over the longer term as well.

Capital?

Capital requirements did increase by about GBP 70 million, I think, half year on half year. And growth is a factor in that. So a couple of the key drivers are expected growth in premiums written over the next 12 months, not necessarily written in the last 6 or 12 months. So that's part of it. The other part of it is increased balance sheet size, so bigger reserves, bigger reserve risk. And so over time, if the business is bigger in terms of premiums written and balance sheet size, then you should expect it to increase.

Thanks. Will?

Will Hardcastle, UBS. First one, I'll go away from U.K. Motor. Just thinking about the Household. Is that mid-80s now a fairly good representation for the business in the medium term? I recognize there was some subsidence claim put into that, but then there was lighter weather. I'm just sort of thinking more medium term there. In U.K. Motor, the average premium, is there any seasonality on H2 on H1, irrespective of sort of where industry pricing goes, all else equal? I'm trying to understand moving parts perhaps this year on the new business fee renewal mix, but also perhaps any normal seasonality that might be there half-half.

Great. So in terms of Household combined ratio, we're very happy with the Household performance. We've -- I think it's showing our strong pricing and claims capabilities come through. We've had relatively benign weather in the first half of '25, not quite as much as in the first half of '24, which -- and that weather will always have an impact on combined ratio. We don't give explicit guidance. Really, we take a very similar approach to household as we do to motor, where we're looking over the medium term and making sure we're making the right choices in terms of balancing growth and margin.

And in terms of motor seasonality, from a market dynamic point of view, we'll see our results will have been impacted partly by the much faster growth we saw in the first half of '24, slightly changes the mix of our business in terms of age of renewals and things like that, and that can have an impact on average premium. On top of the market dynamic, I'm not sure there's anything else I'd call out on the turnover.

Maybe sometimes in January, you have a small impact on price because just pragmatically, the car becomes 1 year older, so some of the tariff factor come to the year, but there's a very small impact and usually it's in January.

Just one really quick follow-up on the home point. It feels like because with the motor and that discussion on combined ratio and balancing growth with efficiency essentially, we sort of know where we are. I guess with home here, are we getting to that point when you'd be willing to reduce growth a bit more? Or are we still at really attractive levels that you'll continue to grow?

So we're still -- in the home market, we're 9% market share. We've got plenty of headroom for growth. I think when you're looking at the last 12 months, we need to take into account what was the driver of growth. So we had the more than renewal migration as well as underlying growth driven by our organic growth, which has contributed to things like multi and retention. So the More Than we won't see going forward. And I think of the growth that we've seen over the last 12 months, around 2/3 of it came from More Than.

Ben Cohen at RBC. I had 2 questions, please. Firstly, on the expense ratio in the U.K., I think you called out how good it was, and there was a big year-over-year improvement. I just wondered, particularly in the U.K. Motor context maybe of softer premiums, how sustainable that is? And maybe you could have a comment as to how that improvement has been -- how much that's been driven by technology versus some of the cost-saving programs that you put forward?

And the second question was on Europe. Could you just remind us the sort of medium-term targets that you're looking to get to in terms of profitability for the European business and again, how you weigh kind of growth in some markets versus margin?

On the expense ratio, of course, the impact of much higher earned premium is important on the expense ratio. But if you look at the cost per risk, we have seen in the past increase mainly driven by data and technology expenditure. But we are doing -- we have a lot of programs in place now to make sure that we maintain -- we counterbalance inflation on data and technology cost, and we try to keep relatively stable or growing very mildly.

So we're quite pleased actually with some of this plan, and there's more that we're working on in terms of potential implementation of additional automation, GenAI and so forth. So I think we're looking at a quite interesting period in which we can continue to work very effectively on cost per risk. I would say that if you look back, majority of the increase were related to data technology and governance. On the Europe, do you want to take this question?

So if we step back, the main objective for us in Europe is to contribute meaningfully to the group profit. So -- and to make this happen, we need to continue building scale, but also improving the trading margins with very discipline. As I said, I'm pleased with the progress we are making towards these targets. But let me caveat that to materialize good profitability, there are a few components that would contribute to this target.

The first one is the margins coming from direct business. At the moment, if we caveat Italy in 2024, we are targeting and we are trading at high single-digit margin. And this is what we are targeting because this margin will also allow us to capture good and healthy growth. Brokers has to improve towards a similar direction. We are not yet there because we are still in the investment phase, but we're making good progress. And I expect this target to be reached in the short to medium term, and we are on track for this.

And then there are a couple of financial aspects also that we need to consider. Reinsurance arrangements will also become more mature and should benefit from this improvement in trading margins and should start to contribute in the short to medium term to profitability plus the investment income. So I think that these are the 4 directions, the 4 dimensions that will contribute to profitability. And overall, our objective is to contribute significantly to group profitability, and we are on track for this.

It's Shanti from Bank of America. I just have 2 questions. One is on the profit commission. So maybe, Geraint, you can take this. So I noticed that you've taken a cautious stance on recognizing the profit commission for the first half of this year. I'm just curious to understand what's really driving you holding that caution. And given that the ultimate loss ratio is due to uptick in the second half of this year, could we still expect that to roll off favorably? Is that the right way to think about it?

And then the second one is just on Admiral Money. You had that GBP 90 million forward flow deal that you captured in the first half of this year. So that seems like a good start to the arrangement. And I'm just curious to know what you expect the cadence to be of the forward flow deals in the next sort of year or so.

Profit commission. So 2025 underwriting year at the half year point has earned very little premium. So even if the mechanical calculation did kick out a positive number, it would be extremely small. So at this point, even if the math kicks out a positive number, we would hold it back. 2025, we do expect to be a profitable year. So it will ultimately -- well, it should, based on everything we see today, recognize profit commission in time. But partly with one on how that loss ratio develops in H2, we've just chosen to constrain that for now down to 0. Did that fully answer that? So we'll see how that develops in the next 6 months or so, but '25 will be a profitable year caveat and should recognize profit commission.

And the second one was on Admiral money, the cadence of future forward flow deals.

Yes, so a good question. So in the first half, we sold GBP 150 million of loans from the back book and then sold GBP 90 million in additional newly originated loans as well. So there's quite a big move, obviously, from on-balance sheet to off in the first half. And we'd expect that use of third-party capital to be an important feature of the business moving forward. Like we said in the past, we want that to be an important part of the business and not least because at some point, Admiral will reach a cap in terms of its ability to finance Admiral Money through the junior funding.

So that's roughly GBP 2 billion on balance sheet size. We won't hit that this year, potentially next year, depending on how things go. And we'll be trying to optimize the loans that we keep on and off-balance sheet to maximize the returns ultimately. So that's something we obviously do all the time. So the on-balance sheet will grow for a couple of more periods and then it will kind of stabilize. And we'll obviously use forward flow and loan sales to manage that position.

Have we received any question from home? Good go.

And now we will take our question from the phone line. And the question comes the line of Ivan Bokhmat from Barclays.

I've got three, please. First one, big picture. We're looking at the reinsurance market that sees increasing capacity, I think more competition for the business from the reinsurers. So I was just wondering if maybe you can give some thoughts about where you guys can optimize your use of reinsurance capital, whether that could be in the structures, it could be in some specific products that you buy. And overall, if that leverage of the more affordable reinsurance costs can somewhat offset the dynamics that we see in U.K. Motor where pricing is probably not covering claims inflation more broadly.

Secondly, I think I wanted to follow up on one of the comments that Geraint made about the reserve confidence at 95th percentile and expected to be down later. Would that be something that would result in stronger reserve releases as a percentage or in absolute terms in 2025 and later years? And maybe the final question. I think you mentioned that you expect to grow this year in every line of business. Maybe you could talk about the July, August trends related to U.K. Motor. Are we on track to hit there? What growth trends are you observing?

First one was on optimization of reinsurance capital for you, Geraint. The second one, I'm sorry, but I didn't really capture it. And the third one on trends in pricing.

So yes, reinsurance, we are having good discussions with our kind of panel of reinsurers on a couple of different markets, a couple of our contracts coming up for renewal at the end of this year. The discussions are positive. I don't expect to see radical change in our use of reinsurance in the short term. Maybe post the model approval, we'll take a look at which types of reinsurance we should be using and whether that changes things or not, we'll obviously take a view at that point. But in the short term, I would expect no radical change in terms, usage or cost.

The second question, I think, was about risk adjustment percentile and the impact on reserve releases moving forward. So we've, across the group, basically held at the maximum level at this point, obviously, partly with an eye on the kind of profitability trends. We guide for 10% to 15% reserve releases as a percentage of premiums in U.K. motor, and that guidance holds. And in the short term, that does include some impact from reducing that risk adjustment percentile. It won't move radically in short -- in individual increments, of course. We'd expect movements to be slow and gradual rather than big, if that makes any sense.

And Al, anything you want to comment on market trend, June, July?

Yes. So on market trends, we're seeing a continuation of what we saw in Q2, which is still some modest price decreases. As I mentioned, we think the market will need to turn in the not-too-distant future. In terms of our approach, disciplined approach, looking at claims costs. And at this point in the cycle, we'd expect a continuation of our modest growth as we've seen in the first half.

There was another one from home, right?

And now we're going to take our next question, and the question comes from the line of Thomas Bateman from Mediobanca.

Just another comment on reserving. I guess you just reiterated the 10 to 15 percentage points guidance, but the reserving position just looks great. So that you're probably running out of places to start reserves. But is there any other data point that you'd point to apart from the 95th that we could get comfortable in terms of the reserving position? It just seems really good at the moment. Any other details there would be really helpful.

Secondly, just coming back to AI. Can you give us an idea of how much you're spending every year and what areas of the business specifically you're targeting? I guess the kind of the thought I have on this business is that Admiral one of the first to adapt to PCWs and you always maintained and probably extended your competitive advantage over peers. And I'm just wondering if we could think about a similar trend in AI.

And finally, just on the government task force review of motoring. I'm just wondering what you made of their actions on more frequent eye test, et cetera, and how that could potentially feed into your pricing.

Geraint, a bit more color on reserves.

Yes. I don't think I've got too much to add to that. Our reserves across the group are either at or very close to the maximum that's allowed under our accounting policy, and we think that's an appropriate place to be right now. And I'd I'll take your compliment, Tom, on the strength of our reserves. So thank you for that. And in terms of other information I'd point to, I don't think there is a lot to point out. We try and keep the strength of our best estimates consistent. They tend to be on the prudent side, as you know, because they tend to develop positively over time, and we've continued in that fashion.

Maybe in the household reserves, as Alistair commented, we've built in an allowance for expected increased subsidence claims in the second half of the year, and we believe that to be an appropriate position, but we'll see how that develops in the second half. But no, I generally agree with your comments, Tom. Nothing else to add.

On AI, I was commenting before that we did increase our data and technology investment in the past and now it's stabilizing. We did a lot of foundational work, and now we're really working on optimization and realization of some of this benefit and more value-creating use case. If you think about AI as predictive AI and generative AI, I think in predictive AI, which has been -- it's a very strong competence for us, something we've been doing for more than 10 years. We have a lot of machine learning models in production. We're working to optimize the use of them. We think they deploy, they help and they're a big part of us developing and deploying such a strong advantage in pricing.

What we have been concentrating recently has been more to extend machine learning beyond pricing and to a commercial purpose propensity model, anti-fraud claims and so forth. And also, we worked into making even more efficiency, our machine delivery -- or machine to deliver models in production. We reduced the time to production by 40% in the last 6 months. So we're very confident it will continue to be a very important feature of Admiral.

If you think about generative AI, I would say investment at this stage is still relatively limited because there is a lot of test learning phase, but we do see this potentially growing. But as I said before, we have done a lot of heavy lifting in terms of the infrastructure, so we can concentrate on this. And we have a few live models, and we have some pilots that are quite interesting. The areas of application tend to be usually tech development, tech delivery. We have some pilots, for example, in agentic development, deploy of tech as well as focus on customer insight, sentiment analysis, call management, call summarization.

But particularly, I would say I'm particularly excited about the application in the space of claims because you can not only improve productivity and efficiency, but also speed of settlement that is great for the customers because you can settle claims faster for them. That's one of the most important things we aim to achieve in terms of customer experience, but also usually has a positive effect on cost if you manage to settle claims faster. So a lot of great stuff. We see this supporting our people to do even better job going forward.

And the last one on motor task force. I don't think it's really for us to comment on the government initiatives, but we are engaging and we try to engage and to contribute to identify initiatives that can reduce claims cost that has been identified and recognized as the main driver of the price increase in the past couple of years and things like, I don't know, road safety, for example, an insured vehicle and so forth, all initiatives, and we're engaging with the market to provide our contribution.

Good. I think that's it for now. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you for listening, and wish you a great day.