AA ticking over despite weather

The AA is on track to meet full-year expectations as the breakdown recovery and car insurance firm brushed aside this year’s unseasonable weather.

The group is to report trading earnings of between £335 million and £345m this financial year.

The performance came despite the AA flagging March’s Beast from the East snow storms and the recent heatwave as a factor in 1.91m breakdowns in the first half of the year, an 8% increase.

“This resulted in increased costs of third-party garaging to supplement our own patrol availability which was partially offset by the additional revenue generated from our pay-for-use B2B contracts,” the firm said.

AA’s paid membership base declined by 1% in the period to 3.25m. However, the group’s insurance division saw 7% growth in motor policies to 659,000 and reported “good progress” in stabilising the decline of its home policies.