The law firms set up by insurance giant Admiral in the wake of the referral fee ban made more than £6m profit in their first full trading year.

Accounts were filed with Companies House this month for Admiral Law, the joint venture set up with personal injury firm Lyons Davidson in April 2013.

For the year ending 31 December 2014, Admiral Law recorded turnover of £10.9m and profit before tax of £4.3m. In the previous year turnover was £6.1m and profit before tax was £2.8m.

The joint venture was set up just weeks after the government banned insurance companies from receiving referral fees from law firms.

Admiral stood to lose a significant income stream through the ban, having earned £18.6m from selling customers’ details to PI lawyers in 2012.

A second law firm, BDE Law, set up to handle claims from customers insured with the firm’s Bell, Diamond and Elephant brands, made a further £1.9m in profit in 2014 based on £4.9m turnover.

Work in progress at both firms increased significantly in 2014.

By the end of that year, WIP was valued at almost £6.5m for Admiral Law and £3.2m for BDE Law. Between them the firms had around £4.5m in WIP at the end of 2013.

The accounts for each company also reveal that 280 people are employed in total by Admiral legal subsidiaries.

The firms provide legal services to customers of the Admiral Group that have suffered a personal injury or other uninsured losses as a result of a non-fault road traffic accident. Their only sources of income are legal fees arising from acting on behalf of customers.

A report last week from comparison site Confused.com, in association with professional services firm Towers Watson, found car insurance premiums have gone up 8% compared to last year.

In the third quarter of 2015 motorists paid on average £47 more compared with the same time last year.