Insurance firm Abbey Protection has indicated it will take full advantage of the future deregulation of legal services.

The firm, which announced its financial results this week, saw post-tax profits increase by 10% to £3.8m in the first half of 2011 – of which £1.2m was from its legal division.

Abbey now intends to provide a more comprehensive package of legal services in the future, beyond the current telephone advice and employment litigation on offer.

In its financial statement, the firm said commercial after-the-event insurance sales continued to progress well, and that it was insulated from any fallout from the reform of the industry.

Chief executive Colin Davison said: ‘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 placed in our plans to replace this income through commercial after the event sales and other ancillary income streams.

‘Whilst the organic growth potential remains in our core legal and professional fees insurance markets, we are well positioned to take advantage of the opportunities afforded in specialist consultancy services in the tax market and the deregulation of legal services (now delayed until the end of 2011).’

Revenues in the first half of 2011 were up by 6% to £18.3m, and are on course to improve upon overall 2010 income of almost £35m.

Abbey said call volumes to its legal services centre had stabilised and the legal services division in particular profited from revenues emanating from affinity schemes business.