Menu

Reinsurance News

Admiral setting up EU hub in Spain in preparation for Brexit

28th February 2018 - Author: Steve Evans

Insurer Admiral Group is the latest to reveal plans for a new European Union hub office in order to maintain continuity in its trading needs after the UK’s exit from the EU under Brexit.

EU brexitAdmiral Group intends to set up entities in Spain and has already put in applications with the regulator to achieve this.

Chairman of Admiral Annette Court said, “As a result of Brexit, we are exploring establishing an insurance company and an insurance intermediary business in Spain to support our European operations.”

Admiral is a leading motor insurer and owner of price comparison insurance websites, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom.

The threat of a hard Brexit, with the potential for trading relations with the EU to be interrupted, has driven the firm to make arrangements in advance.

Geraint Jones, CFO of Admiral Group, explained, “We have made good progress on preparing the Group to be able to continue trading in Europe should, as seems highly likely, we lose the ability to passport our UK regulatory licenses into those markets.

“In terms of insurance, we have made applications to the regulator in Spain for permission to underwrite all the EU insurance business (Admiral Seguros, ConTe and L’olivier) from there and expect to have everything up and running in advance of any hard deadline that might eventually become clear.”

Jones went on to explain why Spain was the chosen destination for the Admiral EU hub, saying, “Spain made sense for us for a number of reasons, not least the fact that we already have people and infrastructure in Madrid and Seville and of course an existing relationship with the regulator.”

He said that the cost of this Brexit-related restructuring work would not be material and no impact to Admiral’s regulatory capital position is foreseen as a result of the restructure.

Admiral is also making arrangements in Spain to house its price comparison business, which Jones explained, “Things are more straightforward on the price comparison side where we are setting up new, locally regulated entities in Spain and France through which Rastreator and LeLynx will trade.”

Admiral said that the Spanish arrangements, “will ensure it is well prepared in the event of a ‘hard’ Brexit which includes being ready to deal with the likely loss of passporting rights from the UK and Gibraltar into the EU. ”

It expects to receive the necessary approvals from the Spanish regulator in 2018, but also notes numerous risks that it faces due to Brexit.

Read all of our Brexit related coverage here.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Recent Reinsurance News

Getting your daily reinsurance news from Reinsurance News is a simple way to receive only the reinsurance industry news that matters, delivered directly to your email inbox.

  • Only email is mandatory, but the more you tell us about yourself the better we can serve you in future!
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By submitting the form you are giving your consent to be emailed by us.

Read previous post:
PERILS puts European windstorm Friederike insured property loss at €1.5 bn

PERILS has placed an initial estimate of insured property market loss for extratropical cyclone Friederike at about EUR 1.5 billion,...

Close