The falling pound might sound like bad news for many, but some are reaping the benefits.
RSA Insurance Group, owner of
More Than, has announced that it is recruiting 200 new staff members, a move which comes as the insurer says it is seeing its results driven higher by the tumbling pound.
RSA will create the new jobs over the next 12 months for its contact centre in Peterborough, to cope with a growing workload.
The move comes as the Group has admitted that the weakening pound is helping to offset “otherwise challenging” trading conditions, as more than two-thirds of its earnings are made in foreign currencies.
The insurer said that profits so far in 2016 are better than it expected, with the Group’s chief executive Stephen Hester adding that Brexit has provided the company with an “attractive tailwind from overseas earnings translation in an otherwise challenging environment.”
“While the fourth quarter can be a bumpy underwriting period, RSA is on track for strong operating earnings increases for 2016 overall,” Hester continued.
While RSA said that earnings in the first nine months of this year have been “strong”, the company said that net written premiums had fallen 5% across the group, following the selling off a number of businesses.
However, on an underlying basis they have risen 6% to £4.6 billion.
Net written premiums in the UK and Ireland have seen a slight increase by 1% to £2.2 billion this year, but the company admitted that home insurance premiums had taken a hit after the company pulled out of loss-making schemes.
The insurer also said it has seen “strong growth” in the take-up of telematics policies.
Total weather costs for the first nine months of this year stand at £145 million, the company said, accounting for 3.2% of net earned premiums.
The Group also sold off more than £1 billion in non-core operations last year.
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