One Call reports £6.25m fall in profit, despite rise in turnover

The fall in profit was in part due to increased administrative expenses from £30.57m to £38.05m in 2021.

In a filing to Companies House, One Call Insurance stated: “The company had a further year of strong sales, and this together with a particular focus on renewal retention rates saw the overall policy count rise by 9.2%.

“As a result of targeted retention growth turnover increased by 3.5% to £52.3m (2020: £50.53m).”

In a breakdown of operating income, the broker also reported that ‘other operating income’ - namely money from the coronavirus job retention scheme dropped - from £762,548 to £84,726 over the same period.

Headcount during the financial year of 2021 only dropped by one, from 444 to 443. The number of directors has stayed the same since 2020, whilst administrative employees increased by 21 to 265 as sales and customer service dropped 22 to 168. 

The business reported profit before tax of £14.33m (2020: £20.73m).

Ransomware attack

In the same financial year, the company suffered from a ransomware attack, which caused disruption to the broker’s IT systems.

One Call Insurance started experiencing technical issues on the 13 May, which was revealed to be the ransomware attack.

The technical problems left customers unable to contact the business via phone and live chat and were unable to login to its customer portal.

The broker reported on the 21 May that its services were up and running again after nine days of disruption.

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