Banking giant Lloyds TSB has reported pre-tax profits of £2 billion for the first half of the year, up 15%, despite a sharp rise in insurance claims following the recent floods chaos. The figure was in line with expectations.
But the firm's general insurance division saw its profits almost halved after an extra £57m in weather-related claims - of which £45m stemmed from June's severe flooding in Britain.
The bank also announced that it had sold its Abbey Life insurance division for almost £1 billion to Deutsche Bank.
Lloyds TSB said income growth of 9% reflected strong performances from each of its divisions and outpaced cost growth of 6%.
Lloyds said its half-year charge for bad debts rose 5% to £837m, including a 1% fall in UK retail bad debts to £627m. It took a charge of £36m to cover the cost of settling customer claims on bank charges in the first half of the year, following a surge in customer complaints across the industry.
