LONDON (Alliance News) - Esure Group PLC on Wednesday said it has promoted Shirley Garrood, its senior independent director, to the position of deputy chairman, and moved to appoint a successor to non-executive director Mike Evans.
Garrood, who joined the board in July 2013, was previously the chief financial officer of FTSE 250 asset manager Henderson Group PLC. She is a non-executive director at FTSE 100 fund supermarket Hargreaves Lansdown PLC and a governor of the Peabody Trust.
Esure named Martin Pike as a new non-executive director. Pike, who is also a non-executive director at FTSE 100 savings and investments company Standard Life PLC, will chair Esure's remuneration committee in the place of Mike Evans, who is giving up his non-executive directorship.
Evans is leaving due to a potential conflict of interest following Zoopla Property Group PLC's acquisition of uSwitch, a price comparison website that is a rival to Esure's gocompare.com. Evans is the chairman of Zoopla. Along with Garrood, he is a member of the board at Hargreaves Lansdown, where he is chairman.
Shares in esure, which owns the Sheilas' Wheels insurance brand and price comparison website gocompare.com, were hit earlier this week when it said it would increase insurance premiums after suffering increased claims in the motor insurance market.
Premiums increased by 5.8% to GBP275.5 million in the first half of 2015, but claims and the cost of handling them were up by 13% to GBP208.6 million. Underlying profit before tax fell by 21.3% to GBP46.5 million and the insurer cut its interim dividend to 4.2 pence from 5.1p.
"The claims environment for the motor market continues to deteriorate and as a consequence we will seek to implement further rate increases in the second half of the year as we look to mitigate against these trends," Stuart Vann said on Monday, when the results were reported.
The insurer expects its combined operating ratio, a key measure of underwriting profitability, to be in the region of 96% to 97% in 2015 as a while. A combined operating ratio below 100% indicates underwriting profitability, whereas a ratio above that threshold suggests losses.
Esure's combined operating ratio was 91.9% in 2014 and 89.7% in 2013.
Shares in the insurer were down 1.3% at 235.80 pence late morning on Wednesday.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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