AMP General insurance – like many general operations the poor relation in its parent’s diverse divisions – returned 8% return on invested capital. Compared with other divisions’ returns of 10% to 18%, that wasn’t so good. But there were bright spots in the general insurance arm’s results.

Mr Batchelor said the absorption of GIO’s general insurance operations into AMP General turned around last year’s $1 million loss to a $39 million operating profit. The integration has also brought savings of $177 million, well above the expected saving of $140 million.

He wasn’t too bothered by questions about possible sales of AMP General, saying a lot of options – alliances and joint ventures among them – are being examined. Some clue to his longer-term thinking was Mr Batchelor’s admission that one option is to manufacture some general products in-house and outsource others. It’s a little like Zurich’s global strategy, where the name of the game is giving the customers what they want, not what you have to sell in-house.

As Mr Batchelor noted, AMP has 9 million customers worldwide, and “making sure we find the right products” is vital.