The top brass of the UK’s largest insurer seem to be unperturbed by the decline in the company’s share prices following Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.
Aviva has yet to fully recover from a 22% share price drop during the first few days of the Brexit fallout, but there’s no sense of unease among the highest executives of the insurance firm, the
Telegraph reported.
“Ultimately, we don’t really spend much time looking and worrying about the share price,” Aviva UK Life CEO Andy Briggs told the publication.
“We spent much more time worrying about the underlying quality of the franchises and what we’re doing,” he added.
Briggs said so far, the Brexit vote has had little impact on Aviva.
“Quite a lot of it is keeping people focused on what we were focused on before - people still need to retire, to protect their homes, protect their loved ones. None of that’s really changed much,” the
Telegraph quoted him as saying.
Briggs also said that the company sees other growth areas and it will be unfazed by potential delays in the UK’s Brexit move.
“There will be some things that if they get delayed a bit it’s not the end of the world, but there are other areas where we’re keen for progress,” he said. “Take the road to reform [for whiplash claims] - we think that car insurance premiums will be £50 a year cheaper as a result of that, which we will pass on to customers.”
Immediately after the historic referendum in June, several UK-listed insurers like Aviva saw their shares plummet. In a statement, however, Aviva claimed that the Brexit vote “will have no significant operational impact on the company.”
“Aviva’s operations in the UK and its other subsidiaries in the EU are well capitalised and continue to trade as normal,” the firm said in an attempt to allay market fears.
Earlier this month, Aviva announced a 13% growth in operation profits, which went up from £1.17 billion to £1.33 billion. Net written premiums also grew by 7% and reached £3.99 billion.
However, the firm’s combined operating ratio in its general insurance business went up from 93.1% to 96.2% due to natural catastrophe costs and operating expenses.
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