Legal fees insurance provider Abbey Protection made a profit after tax of £3.8m in the first half of 2011, up 10% on the £3.4m profit it made in the same period last year.

Revenues in the period were up 6% to £18.3m (H1 2010: £17.3m).

“The results reflect the progress the group has made during the first six months of the year, against an increasingly volatile economic backdrop,” said Abbey chief executive Colin Davison in a statement. “The group has produced another period of sustained growth in revenues and profits, driven by a continued demand for our core services and products, together with an increasing appetite for our specialist consultancy services.”

Abbey’s principal trading divisions – Abbey Legal, Abbey Tax and Ibex, saw revenues increase 9% and profits rise by 12%.

Profit before tax at Abbey Legal, which comprises Abbey Legal Protection (ALP) and Abbey Legal Services increased by a quarter to £1.2m. The company said the result was buoyed in part by revenues from affinity schemes business that incepted in the latter half of 2010.

Abbey Tax Protection’s (ATP) profit before tax increased 19% to £1.6m. The company said sales in its core fee protection product remained strong despite continuing price competition. It added that sales from the consultancy products in the division increased by 27.5% to £1.7m.

Ibex, which acts as a reinsurer for ALP and ATP business, saw gross premiums increase because of a change to the way premiums are ceded to the company. This pushed net earned premiums up 9% to £7.4m. However, an increase in the claims ratio to 65.2% (H1 2010: 63.3%) coupled with low investment yields meant that Ibex’s profit contribution remained static at £2.1m.

Other divisions fared less well. Revenues in Abbey’s after the event (ATE) division fell slightly to £0.6m and profit before tax was also down, at £0.1m.

Abbey said the ATE division faced challenges because of the Law Society’s Accident Line insurance product suffering wholesale reductions in road traffic accident premiums and the forthcoming implementation of the Jackson reforms. However, it added that commercial ATE sales continued to progress well.

Abbey also played down the impact of the Jackson reforms on the business as a whole.

“The Jackson reforms will undoubtedly impact the ATE market, but our exposure (through the Law Society’s Accident Line scheme) is significantly less than a number of our competitors – and we are

already well advanced in our plans to replace this income through commercial after the event sales and other ancillary income streams,” the company said.

Abbey Protection H1 2011 results in £m (compared with H1 2010)

• Revenue: 18.3 (17.3)

• Profit before tax: 5 (4.7)

• Profit after tax: 3.8 (3.4)

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