UK first quarter motor insurance premiums slip - AA

LONDON (Reuters) - British car insurance premiums fell marginally in the first quarter compared with the previous three months, dropping back after sharp rises over most of last year, recovery service AA said on Friday. New business premiums often stall during the first quarter of the year and the AA said in a quarterly statement it expected the upward trend to resume. FTSE 100 firms such as Aviva, Direct Line and RSA are among those operating in the highly competitive car insurance market. The average quote for an annual comprehensive car insurance policy was 561.24 pounds ($820.42), the AA said, a fall of 0.4 percent over the previous quarter, but a rise of 20.7 percent from a year earlier. A survey from comparison website Confused.com and insurance broker and consultancy Willis Towers Watson showed steady motor insurance rates in the first quarter. (Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain; editing by Carolyn Cohn)