Heavy snow across much of Britain has fuelled a sharp rise in motor insurance claims, roadside recovery group AA said on Friday. Reuters cited AA as saying it had received 10 percent more claims than Thursday, the last snow-free day, with 21 percent of them overall related to snow or ice, while in Scotland, the proportion of snow-related claims was 51 percent. Insurers typically face sharply higher claims expenses during cold winters as policyholders seek to recoup the cost of repairing weather-related damage to homes and vehicles. Last winter, the coldest for 30 years, the industry paid 650 million pounds to settle weather-related claims, a spokesman for the Association of British Insurers said. Shares in leading British general insurers Aviva, RSA, and Admiral were down by between 1.5 percent and 0.1 percent by 1615 GMT, while the Stoxx 600 Europe insurance index was 1 percent lower.
