Results > Wednesday 13 August > Interims - Admiral (ADM) £14.50

Car and home insurer Admiral’s (ADM) interims on 13 August may not make for good reading. Investors are already braced for a £100 million fall in revenues, despite an 8% rise in customer numbers, but will be looking for guidance on the £3.9 billion cap’s margins. A trading update on 9 July warned that sales for the period would slip to £1 billion, while 300,000 new customers took the names on its database to 3.9 million.

Competition at home and abroad is driving vehicle premiums down. In the UK these are 9% lower than a year ago at £850 million, but they remain flat in its global business at £100 million. Analysts at Numis do not expect its combined ratio - which measures the premiums it collects relative to the claims and expenses it pays - to suffer unduly. It was 88.3% at the end of 2013 and the broker forecasts a slight move to 87.9%. (MD)