Standard Life looks like emerging from the carnage in the insurance sector as perhaps the strongest outfit, with chief executive Sir Sandy Crombie doing his best to be "reassuringly dull".

The Scottish insurer today reported that it has a surplus of £3.3 billion, putting it well ahead of bigger rivals such as Aviva and Prudential.

Sir Sandy was able to quash talk that he needs to go to shareholders for more cash.

"We won't be making any calls on investors for support in these difficult times," he said.

Standard Life pushed operating profit for the year to 31 December 6% higher to £933 million, allowing it to pay a full dividend of 11.77p, a rise of 2.3%.

Insurers have been buffeted of late by swirling rumours that a big player could go bust.

Short sellers have targeted the shares and regulators are known to be nervously eyeing balance sheets.

"One analyst told me that we are reassuringly dull," said Crombie. "I took that to be a great compliment."

Standard has not adopted the controversial new accounting principals - market consistent embedded value (MCEV) - which have been embraced by Aviva.

Crombie feels these rules are behind some of the recent turmoil as they can give a bleak picture of an insurer's position.

"Recent events call into question their wisdom," he said.

Aviva saw its shares sink 30% after its results last week as the City took fright at its MCEV numbers.

Standard's own shares have not been a good investment since it joined the stockmarket in 2006 at 230p, peaking at 340p 18 months ago. They added 10.5p to 171.8p this morning.

Last month Standard had a dust-up with 97,000 customers who had lost money from investing in a Pension Sterling Fund which they assumed was a no-risk cash product, but turned out to have exposure to subprime mortgages.

It was forced under protest to pay £108 million in compensation.

Crombie insists the brand will not suffer any lasting damage from the row.

"What these extreme conditions have done is expose a couple of quirks in the offering we had for customers. We made some mistakes and apologised," he said.

Sir Sandy was knighted this year - some said as a thank-you from Gordon Brown for Standard Life's actions during the banking crisis. Standard was quick to back the merger of Lloyds TSB and HBOS, helping the deal go through.

Crombie turned 60 this year - the company's normal retirement age - but insists that he has no plans to step down even after 40 years with the insurer.

"I enjoy what I do and have no plans to stop. I want to get the company through this crisis," he said.