Aviva plc (AV) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hi, Amanda. Thank you very much for joining me here at Direct Line's Riverbank House office to talk about Aviva's half year financial results. So we'll get to those in just a minute, but before we do, I have to ask, how is the Direct Line integration going?

Well, Lorraine, first of all, let me say thank you very much for having me here. It's brilliant to be here. So how is it going? Well, we were delighted that we were able to complete the acquisition on the July 1, which is actually just 6 months after we announced the recommended offer. So that was -- I think that was great news and in recognition of such an important milestone, what we were able to do is offer all of the Aviva colleagues and Direct Line colleagues, GBP 500 worth of free Aviva shares, which will be given in September. In terms of the integration, I think it's going really, really well. So Aviva is in control. We have a leadership team in place and customer service hasn't missed a beat, which I'm sure you know better than anybody and the focus now, I think, going forward, is really thinking about the integration process and ensuring that we deliver a better performance, but also the financial synergies that we've said that we would deliver. So really, that's our focus now. But a lot more on that in November when we -- our Q3 results, we'll talk in more detail about what we expect from the Direct Line deal.

Thanks, Amanda. It's such an exciting time to be part of Aviva. So we're at the halfway point of the financial year. How are we performing?

These are really great set of results at the half year, really strong progress across all of the metrics. We're making great strategic progress and what's good is that there's lots of more opportunities that are still to go after. So operating profit is up strongly, but also cash and capital generation are up. But I'm really, really pleased about the progress that we're making with customers. We now have 5.5 million customers with 2 or more Aviva products. And over the last 12 months, the Net Promoter Score has increased by 7 points, and it's now over 50. So we are growing and delivering great customer service.

It sounds like a really very strong first half. Could you share some of the highlights from the market?

So our strategy to be the go-to customer brand is the right one for Aviva, and we're delivering a great set of results across the diversified business. So let me just take you through those. In Insurance, Wealth and Retirement, first of all, in our Wealth business, we're extending our lead as the #1 platform in wealth, and we are still growing, which is great news. In the Protection business, we're continuing to grow margins following the acquisition of the AIG business last year. In Health, the business is really growing strongly and very importantly, with the low 90s combined operating ratio. And finally, in Retirement, we've written GBP 2 billion of above purchase annuity business at attractive margins, really well supported by the Aviva Investors real asset origination team. Now if we move on to the U.K. General Insurance business. Really strong operating profit, but also really strong growth in the business. So an excellent performance from the team there. And in Canada, operating profit is up and the business is also growing.