Admiral Insurance is a Welsh company that offers a multitude of insurance policies: from home and car insurance to pet and travel insurance, it’s got you and what you love covered. Find out more about the company - including its history - in our handy Admiral Insurance review. We have even included customer reviews and outlined how to log in to an Admiral Insurance account online. Read on now to discover all.
Admiral Insurance
Admiral Insurance was the first brand launched by the Admiral Group in 1993. Created on the 2nd of January 1993 by Henry Engelhardt, it only sold car insurance and had just 57 members of staff.
Today Admiral Insurance is one of the UK’s top car insurers. In April 2018 it sold its fourth million car insurance policy, meaning it insures one in every seven cars driving on the UK’s roads.
It’s not only its car insurance arm that has grown since its launch. Over the years, Admiral Insurance has added many other types of insurance to its bow, including home insurance, travel insurance and pet insurance, as well as personal finance services.
Admiral Insurance strives to be heavily involved in its local Welsh communities and since 2010 it has been an official sponsor of the Welsh Rugby Union. Members of the Welsh team opened Admiral’s new office in Newport and all employees get free tickets to Wales’ home games.
About Admiral Group: Then to now
The Admiral Group plc is a Welsh company created in 1993 with the launch of Admiral Insurance. Today it operates in eight countries, employs eleven thousand people and has over six and a half million customers.
As well as Admiral Insurance, Admiral Group has many other brands in the UK. Some of them you are bound to have heard of. Let’s take a look:
- Bell - Bell sells car insurance, specialising in plug and telematics insurance.
- Diamond - Diamond also offers car insurance but all of its policies are aimed at women.
- Confused.com - confused.com is a very famous price comparison site (we are sure you have heard of it).
- Elephant - Elephant.co.uk sells car insurance purely online.
- Gladiator - this used to be an insurance broker but now sells van insurance directly.
Admiral abroad
As mentioned earlier, Admiral Group now operates in seven other countries besides the UK. It first ventured abroad in 2006 when it launched car insurance company Balumba.es in Spain. Since then it has created two other insurance brands in Spain, as well as price comparison sites and brands in Italy, France, the USA, Mexico and Turkey.
| Country | Admiral Group brand |
| Spain |
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| France |
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| Italy |
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| Mexico |
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| Turkey |
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| USA |
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Timeline of Admiral Group
- 1993 - Admiral Insurance is launched by American Henry Engelhardt.
- 1995 - Admiral’s website goes live.
- 1997 - The company creates its Diamond and Bell brands.
- 1998 - Admiral launches Gladiator.
- 1999 - The insurer is named Welsh Company of the Year at the Welsh Business Awards.
- 2000 - The company’s Elephant brand is created.
- 2002 - Admiral launches it’s sixth brand Confused.com.
- 2004 - Admiral enters the London Stock Exchange.
- 2005 - The insurer launches its Multi-Car scheme, which allows policy holders to insure more than one car on the same policy.
- 2006 - Admiral goes abroad and launches Balumb.es in Spain.
- 2009 - The company’s turnover hits the £1 million mark.
- 2010 - Admiral starts it sponsorship of the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU).
- 2012 - On the 18th December 2012, Admiral starts selling home insurance in the UK.
- 2015 - The insurer is named the Best Motor Provider at the Personal FInance Awards for the third year in a row.
- 2017 - In November 2017, Admiral sells its first travel insurance policy.
Shares and finances
The Admiral Group entered the London Stock Exchange on the 23rd September 2004 with an initial share price of £2.75. The company floated the biggest ever capital raising for a Welsh company and became the highest valued company in Wales (as of 2019 it is the second highest).
If you are interested in purchasing Admiral Group shares, you can find current share prices on the investor relations section of the company’s website. Here you can also find information on how to manage your shares with Admiral’s shareholder services.
How is Admiral performing financial? Since 1993, Admiral’s turnover has made steady progress and has increased nearly every year. In 1993, it had a total turnover of £18 million, in 2018 it’s yearly turnover was £3.28 billion.
Who is the CEO of Admiral Insurance?
The current CEO of Admiral is David Stevens. He took over the role from founder Henry Engelhardt in 2016 but has been heavily involved in the company since its inception in 1993.
Working at Admiral Insurance UK
Admiral Insurance’s headquarters are based in Cardiff. In total it has three offices in Cardiff, one in Newport and three more in Swansea and employs around seven thousand people in Wales alone.
Under the philosophy of ‘people who like what they do, do it better’ Admiral strives to be a top place to work with a good work-life balance. In fact, since 2001, it has been listed in the Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For every single year.
Also, all employees who stay with the company for over a year receive free Admiral shares two times a year for the rest of their employment with the insurer.
If you are interested in working for the insurer, check out their job’s vacancies page to see what roles are available. From jobs in customer support and claims handling to IT and management, there are lots of career options to choose from.
Admiral Insurance: What policies does it offer?
In the UK, Admiral Insurance is a big name in the insurance world. It sells a variety of insurance policies to customers, including car, home and travel insurance. One of the company's most innovative schemes is MultiCover, which lets you have your home and all your cars on one single policy!
Admiral home insurance
Admiral started selling home insurance in 2017 and today has three levels of cover:
- Admiral
- Admiral Gold
- Admiral Platinum
The basic policy, Admiral, offers a good level of essential cover, but also lets you add extra cover on if you need it. In this sense, it is quite a flexible policy and can be tailored to your needs. Admiral Platinum is their falgship level and includes all the cover you could possibly need as standard, including accidental damage, home emergency cover (guide coming soon), as well as trace and access.
If you are interested in taking out an Admiral home insurance policy and want to find out more, give our Admiral home insurance guide a read (coming soon).
Confused about some of the key terms that keep cropping up in your home insurance research? Our home insurance glossary (coming soon) has got all the answers.
Admiral car insurance
As one of the UK’s most well known car insurers, it should be no surprise that Admiral Insurance has been voted the best car insurance provider at the Personal Finance Awards for 6 years in a row since 2014. It offers numerous different types of motor insurance:
- Car insurance
- Multi-Car insurance
- Van insurance
- Black box insurance
- Classic car insurance
- Learner driver insurance
- Car sharing insurance
- Motorbike insurance
Alongside these policies, there is also the option to add-on many extras for increased cover, such as breakdown cover, cover for hired vehicles and insurance for your car keys. To find out more about what the policies include and how Admiral fares on price compared to other providers, head to Selectra’s Admiral car insurance guide (coming soon).
Admiral travel insurance
Travel insurance is one of the latest strings to be added to Admiral’s bow. Since 2017, Admiral Insurance offers customers the two main types of travel insurance:
- Single trip: can cover you for one holiday of up to 365 days (a great amount of time if you are going backpacking or taking a gap year abroad).
- Annual multi-trip: covers you for an unlimited amount of holidays lasting up to 31 days each over a full year.
These policies come in three different levels of cover, ranging from basic with the Admiral policy, moderate with the Admiral Gold and comprehensive cover with Admiral Platinum.
For those going on more adventurous or specific types of holidays, Admiral Insurance lets you add ‘upgrades’ on to your policy to make sure you remain covered for the activities you will be embarking on. These include a winter sports upgrade, a cruise upgrade, a golf upgrade and a gadgets cover upgrade. Discover more in our complete guide to Admiral travel insurance.
Admiral Insurance login
All Admiral Insurance customers can manage their insurance policies conveniently from the comfort of their own home through an online portal. Through the Admiral online account system, customers have easy access to their policy information whenever they want.
How do you access this information? Let’s break down the Admiral Insurance login process.
- Head to the Admiral Insurance website by typing Admiral Insurance into google. Admiral.com - Car, MultiCar and Multicover Insurance Quotes should be the first result. Click this.
- You will now be on the Admiral website. In the top right hand corner there is a yellow box with My Account written inside, click this.
- Next you need to select the type of insurance you have e.g. motor or home. Find the one you want from the list and click it.
- Click the green button with LOGIN TO MYACCOUNT and you will be taken to the Admiral Insurance login page.
- In the email box, type in the email address you used to set up your account.
- In the password box, type in your password.
- Click the big green LOGIN button at the bottom of the page and you’re done.
- You will now be logged in to your account and able to manage your insurance policy.
If you do not have an account but want to access your documents online, you need to register for an Admiral account. This is super easy. Just follow the steps listed above up to step four. Click the blue REGISTER FOR MYACCOUNT button, fill in all the required details, click SIGN UP and you will have your own account.
Forgotten your password? Simply click the Forgotten your password? link that’s located underneath the password box on the login page. You will be asked to enter your email address and Admiral will send you a link through which you can reset your password. Easy!
To go directly to the Admiral Insurance login page, click the button below.
Admiral Insurance review
What do current and past customers think of Admiral Insurance? While your decision on which provider to go with shouldn’t be based solely on customer reviews, they are still handy to gauge aspects that people seem to like and dislike about policies and customer service. So, let’s look at some Admiral Insurance reviews left online.
On Trustpilot, Admiral has a rating of 3.9/5, which isn’t amazing, but isn’t bad either and suggests that most customers are satisfied. Out of 5,237 reviews left on the site, 56% rate the insurer as excellent. The main praise is given to Admiral’s good customer service and fair pricing.
Fantastic customer service, really good price. Perfect insurance company! Thomasz
However, a criticism expressed by more than a handful of customers was that they were disappointed with how much their renewal quote was.
No issues when I was with them but the renewal quote was ridiculous. Found cover elsewhere and then they offered to lower the price..too late! Anonymous Customer
This was a sentiment expressed even more on Reviews.co.uk. Many people here complained about sharp increases in their premium when they went to renew, as well as high cancellation fees.
Customers on reviews.co.uk were also not as happy with the customer service they received as those on Trustpilot, complaining they often found it difficult to get in touch with Admiral over the phone.
Tried calling for quote 3 times and first time held on for 30 mins got no where. Rang again on different number held on for 20 mins no answer. Rang a 3rd number and guess what still hanging on for about 10 mins... Janet
Out of all the review sites we looked at, Admiral Insurance comes out on top on Reevoo. Here 98% of all 15,560 respondents would buy from Admiral again, and 97% of 5,228 reviews were happy with the customer service they received.
Admiral Insurance actually works with Reevoo, directing its customers to leave comments here when they buy their policies, explaining why the reviews are so overwhelming positive (you wouldn’t encourage someone who has had a bad experience to leave a review!). Nonetheless, 15,560 is a lot of reviews, implying that a lot of Admiral customers are happy with the company.
Many insurers will increase your premium when you look to renew your policy (unfortunately customer loyalty is not always rewarded); it is not exclusive to Admiral. This is why it’s really important to not let your policy automatically renew and shop around for different offers. You might find that if you find a cheaper quote elsewhere, your current insurer will match it. Some customers mentioned Admiral Insurance did just that.
You also cannot hold cancellation fees against Admiral. Most providers charge fees if you cancel your policy after the first 14 days. You should always read your policy wording carefully so fees such as this won’t come as a surprise.
Complaints data
Another way to get an impression of how happy customers are with Admiral Insurance is to take a look at the company’s complaints data. Does it receive a lot of complaints compared to other providers? Is it good at dealing with them?
From January to June 2019, Admiral received 5.18 complaints for every 1,000 policies in force. When compared to the amount received by other providers in a six month period, this is quite a high ratio (AXA, Covea, LV and Ageas all received less than 2).
Despite this, Admiral is extremely efficient at dealing with these complaints. In these 6 months it resolved a total of 52,083 issues, of which 58% were sorted within 3 working days. This is one of the highest figures we have seen. However, it only upheld (considered to be valid) 47% of all complaints, meaning it disregards a greater percentage of complaints than a lot of other providers.
The main reason for complaints reported was ‘errors and not following instructions’, suggesting that quite a few customers do experience less than shining customer service.
Contact Admiral Insurance UK
Each insurance product offered by Admiral Insurance has a different contact number. If you want to get in touch with Admiral to discuss your policy, get a quote or make a claim, you can find the contact number you need in our Admiral contact page (coming soon).
Make a complaint
- If you want to complain to Admiral about your policy, you can ring 0330 333 5888.
- If you want to complain about a claim you’ve made, ring 0330 333 5887.
Data and information correct as of September 2019.
All material on this page and the selectra.co.uk website is for information purposes only and does not constitute any form of financial advice. Selectra.co.uk is not responsible for any consequences that might arise from your use of the information provided.
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