Hastings Group provides insurance services to the UK car, van, bike and home insurance market. Founded as Hastings Direct in 1997, it employs around 2,680 people and has 2.3m live customer policies. The groups retail business, Hastings Insurance Services, is responsible for the end customer pricing, fraud management, product design, distribution and management of the underlying customer relationships. Its underwriting business, Advantage Insurance Company, engages in risk selection, underlying technical pricing, reserving and claims handling.