Cars sitting idle fund Admiral’s bumper divi

ADMIRAL announced a bumper dividend for shareholders after a slump in car insurance claims during lockdown boosted profits.

With Britons mostly staying off the roads at the height of the pandemic, the insurance giant reported ‘significantly’ fewer claims by customers. This helped push up its half-year profits by 30pc, taking them to £287m.

As a result, Admiral said it would dish out a special dividend of 91.2p per share, worth £268m in total, after previously suspending its payout in April due to the coronavirus crisis.

Its move is a much-needed boon for savers and pension funds, who have been starved of income as companies have slashed dividends. It is also giving more than 10,000 staff shares worth £1,800 each as a reward for their work during the pandemic.

It means the average employee there has had £10,800 worth of stock in the past three years.

Admiral’s share price rose by 7.3pc, or 183p, to 2708p after the announcement yesterday.

Despite the profits boost from fewer claims and an increasing number of customers, the firm’s total revenues for the six months to June 30 slipped 4pc to £1.7bn.

Admiral blamed the drop on its decision to give customers a £25per-vehicle ‘stay at home’ rebate to reflect lower vehicle usage.

David Stevens said: ‘We adapted quickly to the circumstances, pirouetting from one working model to another and compressing years of learning and development into a matter of weeks through a phenomenal collective effort.

‘This year’s interims benefit from our consistently competent underwriting and conservative reserving on past years, feeding into another strong set of results in the core business and beyond.’