Antonio Lorenzo
Management
Thank you, António, and good morning, everybody. I am delighted to be here today to tell you about the great progress we are making in Insurance and Wealth. Our financial performance has been a strong in recent years with new business premiums up 72% versus the first half of 2017. This is a result of growth across multiple business lines including corporate pensions and the step-up in auto enrolment contributions as well as growth in individual protection. As I will show you today, we have also grow share in other areas that we have heavily invested in and prioritized, such as home insurance where our offering has been transformed following three platforming. Given this new income is up 23% over the same period more than an offsetting runoff from longstanding products. These growth combined with a strong cost control in the period for an increased digitization has supported a 58% increase in underline profit over the last two years. The business is now an increasing contributor to the Group, representing 38% of other income in the first half of 2019, up 7 percentage points year-on-year. The business has also upstream around £7 billion of cumulative dividends since 2011. Insurance and Wealth is a uniquely positioned, integrated business with a comprehensive proposition across multiple product lines, leveraging the group multi-brand and multi-channel model. Since 2015, we have received the business to be leaner and more customer centric, while significantly increasing investment. As a result, we are in a better place to harness the considerable operational and financial synergies arising for being part of a wider banking group. Looking ahead, we are well positioned to capture further growth across a number of fast-growing and attractive markets, as well as deepening engagement with our customers. I will now discuss some of these areas…