Moneysupermarket sees huge profit rise

Price comparison site Moneysupermarket ’s parent company enjoyed an 8% bump over the first half of this year, amid surging revenue from its insurance business.

The firm saw profit reach £73 million.

Mony Group, which owns the website as well Moneysavingexpert , saw 14% growth in its insurance comparison segment, which brought in £120 million in the six months to June 30.

Moneysavingexpert was founded by celebrity personal finance guru Martin Lewis and was bought in 2012.

The company said insurance switching had seen “exceptional growth” in 2023 which has carried over into the first part of this year, but it expects the trend to taper off in the second half of 2024.

The insurance business made up for weaker results across other areas. Revenue in its home services arm, which includes energy switching and broadband, was down 10% to £16.7 million.

In recent months it has seen “continued weakness in broadband and a softening of mobile switching, driven by lower levels of conversion as providers increased focus on customer retention”.

“In energy, there were a few switching deals available but market uncertainty remains and energy revenues were immaterial,” the company added.

Meanwhile, its money division was down 2% at £50.9 million, as good performance in credit card switching was cancelled out by weakness in loans, which it put down to loans still being “less affordable for consumers in the high interest rate environment”.

“We also experienced a weaker performance in banking (current accounts and savings products) due to fewer attractive offers in the period,” it said.

Moneysupermarket also passed 500,000 people on its membership platform, SuperSaveClub, up from 300,000 in April.

Its Moneysavingexpert app passed 1.4 million downloads.

Peter Duffy, chief executive of Mony Group, said: “We’ve made good progress in the first half of the year reaching a best-ever (first half) revenue and (adjusted profit).

“Ours is a business that only makes money if customers save money and in the first half of 2024, we saved customers £1.7 billion.”

Martin Lewis sawmore than one million complaints over car finance, raising the possibility of major compensation payouts.

The money-saving expert and consumer champion said car finance mis-selling has the potential to be the “second biggest reclaim payout in UK history” after the PPI scandal.

About 1.1 million complaint emails have been sent out through a free tool on the MoneySavingExpert.com website amounting to about 30,000 per day.

The tool and guide were launched on February 6 in response to the UK’s financial regulator opening a major probe into hidden and unfair selling practices in the car finance market.

This article was amended on the day of publication. It previously incorrectly stated that Martin Lewis founded MoneySuperMarket however he founded MoneySavingExpert.