. liability insurance quote online

ur agenda for the second half is clear; a continued drive to raise performance through better underwriting, lower costs and strong focus on customers. We expect that 2016 will be another year of great progress for RSA.”

Trading results

• Group operating profit £312m up 20% (H1 2015: £259m): Scandinavia £131m; Canada £69m; UK £144m.
• Record1 H1 Group underwriting profit of £174m, up 72% (H1 2015: £101m). Core Group combined ratio of 94.3% (H1 2015: 96.4%). Scandinavia 88.5%; Canada 94.5%; and the UK 94.4%.
• Record1 H1 Group current year underwriting profit of £119m (H1 2015: £73m); Core Group current year attritional loss ratio 3.1pts better than last year.
• Weather and large losses £59m worse than planned and £49m worse than H1 2015; net claims cost of £39m for the Alberta wildfire and £35m for UK and European floods in June.
• Prior year underwriting profit of £55m (H1 2015: £28m), driven by Canada and the UK in particular.
• Ireland returned to operating profit (£3m vs £11m loss in H1 2015).
• Core Group premiums flat on an underlying basis1; up 3%2 headline.
• Investment income of £187m (H1 2015: £206m).
• Net gains include £169m tangible gains1 mainly from disposals completed in the year, offset by £188m intangible charges1, as previously flagged. Reorganisation costs of £70m.
• Post tax profit of £91m (H1 2015: £215m benefited from disposal gains).
• Solvency II coverage ratio of 158% (31 December 2015: 143%), towards upper end of our target range of 130-160%; now includes the full benefit of the completed Latin America disposals and pension de-risk.
• Tangible equity2 £3.3bn (31 December 2015: £2.8bn), 326p per share; increase driven by profits, positive mark-to-market and foreign exchange.
• Underlying return on opening tangible equity2 of 12.8% annualised (H1 2015: 9.7%).
• Underlying earnings per share2 (EPS) 17.8p (H1 2015: 13.8p).
• Interim dividend of 5.0p / ordinary share (H1 2015: 3.5p).

1Underlying or alternative performance measure, refer to pgs 27-28 for further explanation; 2 At constant FX.

Strategic updateNote: The Group uses alternative performance measures, including certain underlying measures, to help explain business performance and financial position. Further information on these is set out in the appendix.

• Strategic actions to make RSA ‘focused, stronger and better’ continue apace.
• Successfully completed the disposals of our businesses in Latin America and Russia in the first half. This brings to a close our principal disposal programme (total proceeds £1.2bn 2014-16), with the desired strategic focus now achieved.
• With RSA stronger and more resilient, actions are now being taken to optimise the composition of capital. In July we completed the retirement of £200m of subordinated debt reducing both leverage and interest costs, with further actions in contemplation. During the first half we also completed, as previously flagged, a de-risking of the asset mix in our UK pension schemes.
• Our many performance improvement initiatives are proceeding well. These cover:
  • Customer service, sales effectiveness and digitisation;
  • Pricing and underwriting improvements;
  • Expense reduction;
  • Technology improvements in infrastructure, policy administration, claims and pricing.
• Core business controllable costs2 for H1 2016 were down 3% year-on-year at constant exchange to £702m (comprising 5% cost reductions, offset by 2% inflation).