12 August 2026
If you are covering the results of insurance company Hastings or its parent company Sampo, please find below comments from Phil Ross, equity research analyst at Quilter Cheviot:
"Sampo, the Finnish parent company of UK motor insurer Hastings, announced a decent set of results. Revenues were marginally ahead of expectations, growing at just over 5% year on year – a solid rate of growth when insurance pricing isn’t doing much at the moment, especially in Commercial lines. Furthermore, the company has edged up guidance for the full year by 1%.
"The investment line saw a small miss on expectations, but importantly the underwriting/insurance result is better, despite the impact of Storm Dave in the Nordics. It may feel a long time ago now, but early Spring was particularly wet and windy.
"Of more importance to the UK insurance market is the performance of Hastings, where the company saw a nice 7% beat. There are signs that car insurance premiums are starting to go back up, which will improve margins for Sampo (Admiral also said this). However, despite a very competitive market, and active consumer behaviour in what is a challenging cost of living environment, Hastings has still managed to grow its policy count by 13% over the year, now standing at 4.8m customers. It has managed to do this whilst sticking to its profitability targets, and with pricing at an inflection point, it bodes well looking forward. There is certainly some decent momentum as the company heads towards its capital markets day in November, where investors await some new financial targets, and we expect some discussion on industry hot topics like autonomous vehicles."
