Direct Line Insurance Share Discussion Threads

[sundial1] 04/9/2018 17:00

Over all bear market coming

[garycook] 04/9/2018 11:50

Direct Line Insurance Group PLC (DLG.L)

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SELL
333.3
BUY
333.4
-1.3pts (-0.39%)

High: 337.3

Low: 333.3
96% of client accounts are long on this market

[sufc555] 20/8/2018 09:41

Operating profit for first 6 months of 2018 £303m - despite weather claims of £75m - heading for £600m plus - admiral half year £212m

[essentialinvestor] 20/8/2018 09:12

Around £510 M on pre tax is the consensus for the full year, 539 M for '19.

[sufc555] 19/8/2018 14:38

Dlg do offer products via comparison sites - Churchill / green flag / privilege - the reason to keep dlg shares is the yield - currently 10% - that is the reason why you hold a share after all - this is a company that makes £600m a year significantly more than admiral yet is worth a billion less

[essentialinvestor] 19/8/2018 14:09

Admiral have already said it's of interest.

Amazon have been recruiting over the last two years for a European
based insurance business, no details of what it entails have
been released.

Of more immediate interest/concern is DLG's rather pedestrian growth rates
re the sector.

Now either other companies or pricing more aggressively to gain share,
or DLG may need to refresh their marketing campaign.

[pete160] 19/8/2018 13:49

I understand that the talk is of Amazon /Google creating a price comparison website, not actually providing insurance.

The margins in insurance are quite low as it is (relying mainly on investment income) and I can't see amazon, google, etc. wishing to muddy their reputations with providing anything other than convenience for consumers.

If they did produce their own comparison data perhaps DLG - which famously does not appear on (pay to go on) price comparison websites could do well? (assuming that their basic offering is competitive /value for money).

[kulvinder] 18/8/2018 09:05

Could look at it another way, meaning to get started quickly they could bid for DLG. Long shot I know....

[essentialinvestor] 17/8/2018 17:42

It's been rumoured for a while insurance is their next big target area-
The great disruptor, or not so great depending on your viewpoint.

[jrphoenixw2] 17/8/2018 13:34

'Amazon shocks price comparison websites with talks on insurance push'

Daily Telegraph^ article this morning re: Amazon muscling in to the insurance price comparison sector. Seems to have rocked the share sector today...

[jrphoenixw2] 14/8/2018 14:08

That's the trouble scrwal, special divs by their nature are just that, and wishing they were more like regular divs might be unrealistic.
The upside is if a share also pays out a base-line non-Special div, at least there is something coming in and you remain invested with the hope of Specials in future.
AFAUI insurers typically don't pay Specials until their year-end accounts have been signed off, when they can guage their required level of insurance collateral funding, vs their projected [year-ahead and beyond] underwriting volume. Certainly in the case of Lancashire Holdings/LRE that was how it worked. If they felt they were holding excess collateral, ie funds that had no good productive use for, they'd pay it out in a Special. But when claims were running high, and/or they saw circumstances that presented a good opportunity that would require collateral then they didn't pay one. - I agree with you though it creates an at times mad roller-coaster on the income side of things, but as part of a wider x-sector portfolio... er, it can feel a bit like having a portfolio position in Premium Bonds.

[saltaire111] 14/8/2018 10:50

So is DLG next in line for a private buyout? Wouldn’t be surprised to see soneone come in. It was clear that Peter Wood wanted out at Esure and I appreciate the management situation at DL is different. But in an environment where there’s a whole heap of cash around in search of a relatively low risk return, i’d Not be surprised to see DL go the same way as esure. I’m buying more DL with the proceeds from Esure.

Salty

[wolansm] 14/8/2018 10:10

How many directorships vice chairman jobs can one person hold down.......

[scrwal] 13/8/2018 18:24

jrphoenixw2 DLG have fortunately rebased the normal dividend upwards at the start of the 2017 financial year which has given a lot more visibility to recurring income. I just wish that they would pay the special dividend in instalments rather than include it all with the final div because that causes a massive hit the price when it goes xd.

[jrphoenixw2] 09/8/2018 14:06

I find it difficult to decide how to consider likely income from shares that pay specials. You either completely ignore them, and work off what's usually a very small baseline div, or work off prior year figures, though that's treacherous, especially if you're planning ahead how you might spend it!

[put the usual www. in front of this] dividenddata.co.uk/dividendyield.py?market=ftse100
A quite handy site for sorting the UK indices by yield, and other metrics. You'll see it has a button to toggle between incl/excl specials. You can also click an individual share and see a table of recent divs, plus long-form calculations of how Div% has been arrived at, both incl/excl any specials. It's also nice they update the closing px's each night so the Yield% figures are IME very reliable. For DLG it looks like this today … [ditto^ re: www.] dividenddata.co.uk/dividend-yield.py?epic=DLG
That's a useful site, one I use as a primary sift for yield-based stock-picks. After identifying a short-list I then confirm the data used vs the individual corporate shareholder websites, just to be sure.


If new to that site maybe start at the homepage and have a look around, as for a free resource there is a lot of use to be found in it IME/O. - I've no connection with it nor any of the sites I might recommend from time to time beyond 'happy user'.

[speedsgh] 09/8/2018 12:05

2017 dividend excl special payment was 20.40p = 6.3% at current 323.7p offer

[contrarian joe] 09/8/2018 11:52

Only just ,there's a few close to them Mggt £4.4BN,Rmv £4.4bn,Ubm £4.2bn,Wg £4.5bn,there's also a few above them around the £4.6bn mark.

[glasgow13] 09/8/2018 11:48

think it is 6%

[diku] 09/8/2018 11:44

Yes just noticed Dlg paid a special divi earlier this year hence the yield on ADVFN showing high as they have included in the stats...without special divi yield will be lower but above FTSE average...

[diku] 09/8/2018 11:34

Think 92nd is safe so far...

[jrphoenixw2] 09/8/2018 11:33

@diku, it's in or close to the danger zone. One way I keep an eye on such things is via stockchallenge.co.uk - click on the FTSE Ranking tab. It tabulates the capitalisation of the FTSE All-share Index and identifies those that might be subject to promotion/demotion. Prices are updated in their table periodically rather than live, say every week or two.

re: whether the yield is at risk. I haven't looked at it recently, if the media aren't highlighting it then I worry less. Insurers are a sector where yields can be higher than average in the long term (IFAIUI there is no point them sitting on excess cash they can't use for underwriting collateral so the sector can get more than average special divs etc). Same reason Admiral was and perhaps still is such a fat-div payer, ditto Lancashire Holdings/LRE though that is certainly in the 'was' category right now.

[contrarian joe] 09/8/2018 11:30

It's getting close mkt cap £4.564bn sitting around 92nd place!!