Admiral Group Studies Offering Home Insurance

U.K. car insurer Admiral Group PLC (ADM.LN) said Wednesday it is studying the prospect of expanding into the household insurance business and also expects the U.K. market to see further increases in car insurance premium rates for the rest of the year and perhaps into next year.

Admiral Finance Director Kevin Chidwick told reporters the company has previously been against the idea of offering household insurance, but that view has changed with the growing popularity of price comparison websites.

Chidwick said Admiral's own Confused.com website has made the company "more accessible" to customers.

"We're not going gung-ho (into household insurance) by any stretch of the imagination. We're investigating the issue. We're looking to recruit expertise and take it to a pilot stage to see whether it's something which we see we can get value out of," he said.

"Only if those things turn out to be true would we look to seek to get more significantly involved in household...It would probably come through in dribs and drabs and perhaps put on hold until the second half of 2011 before anything happens," he said.

He said the car insurance market is "still well under water" despite recent increases in car insurance premium rates.

"The market is probably in a worse place than it has ever been in its history on a net basis. And that means it has to put through more rate increases on top of the ones it has already seen.

"We've already seen rate increases come through in the second half and we anticipate there will be a bit more to come as well," Chidwick said.

-By Vladimir Guevarra, Dow Jones Newswires. Tel. +44 (0) 2078429486, vladimir.guevarra@dowjones.com

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