So, what have we done for:
Our Community
We have set up the £4 million Admiral Support Fund for Covid-19, which is predominantly providing funding and support in South Wales, where we are based, to the NHS, charities, support groups and will also allow us to contribute to any insurance industry wide charitable effort. We have been active in helping several charities and groups, which we are extremely proud of.
Here are just a few ways we have helped:
- Supported Swansea, Cardiff and Newport food-banks – diverted our fruit supply to these extremely important community organisations
- Supported The Wallich with food supplies
- Donated to The Play Yard which provides meals for under privileged children and families
- Donated to St Thomas Parish which distributes food / meals to vulnerable people within SA1 area, amongst other supportive initiatives
- £100k donated to The Community Foundation Wales
- Feeding NHS staff through donations to various organisations
- Supplying essential items to Hospitals across South Wales in the form of medical shoes, calculators, pyjamas, etc
We also asked our employees to send in details of their charitable events that had been cancelled so we could support and help with fundraising for their chosen charities.
Brian Martin, Head of Business Support at Admiral said: "Admiral’s support means so much for our community and we will continue to work hard to help those in need in such a difficult time."
You can find out more about how we’ve been supporting our community here.
Our Employees
To support our employees, all employees are being paid their full salary and no employees are being furloughed under the UK Government funded scheme and we don’t expect to benefit from any other initiatives funded by the government.
Ecare, our counselling and support service for employees have also introduced a ‘Dependant Line’ for any dependants in employees’ households to offer additional support during the pandemic 24 hours a day. We also have a Workplace Support function who order a range of equipment to make life easier for employees at home whilst working. Nearly 2800 orders so far and climbing! To help our employees get the right advice, we have teamed up with HSBC who now offer 121 telephone appointments to help anyone with their financial concerns.
Our Training function “Admiral Academy” have developed several webinars, online courses and playlists for all our employees that focuses on mental health, living in lock-down and working remotely. We are also building a programme for the future of ‘smart working’: how we integrate remote and office time, the use of office space, how we manage teams, the cultural implications, organisational structure and technology.
Our Customers
We pledged to give back £110million to our car and van insurance customers in recognition of the fact that our customers stayed at home and drove less during the UK wide Covid-19 lock-down.
A £25 refund was automatically given to all customers for each car and van covered with us on the 20th April 2020, a total of 4.4m vehicles. We gave the refund to reflect there have been fewer cars on the road during the lock-down which resulted in fewer claims. This was done to ensure as a company we didn’t benefit during the lock-down. Our intention was to return estimated savings to our customers rather than benefit from reduced driving during the lock-down.
We have also waived any motoring claims excess fees for NHS or emergency service workers and supporting NHS volunteers. We guarantee cover for customers using their vehicle to transport people, deliver medical supplies and equipment, or items to people who are self-isolating. In addition, we wanted to show our support for NHS and emergency service workers by giving them a free courtesy vehicle to keep them on the road during the lock-down.
We are further supporting our customers who are in financial hardship as a result of the outbreak by being flexible with customers struggling with monthly payments.
Cristina Nestares, CEO of UK Insurance at Admiral said:
“During this challenging period, our main priorities have been helping our customers, supporting our local community and protecting the wellbeing of our employees, which is why we have introduced these initiatives to give something back to the customers and communities we serve.
"This is an unprecedented time when people across the country are driving significantly less than before the lock-down, and we expect this to lead to a fall in the number of claims we are seeing. We want to give the money we would have used to pay these claims back to our loyal customers in this difficult time. We have also already reflected this change in driving behaviour in our pricing for customers and will continue to do so."
