Legal & General secures another lender partnership

 

Legal & General has secured a new 5-year general insurance partnership with Skipton; the UK's fourth largest building society. The deal is a reasonably significant one in premium terms with an estimated annual GWP of around £5 million, focused on home and landlords' insurance. 

L&G works with 15 banks and building societies, but its partnerships are overwhelmingly based upon protection products (e.g. Barclays and Yorkshire banks and Nationwide and Leeds building societies). These can provide a good entry-point into general insurance relationships as has happened with Skipton (L&G has been its protection partner since 2012) and previously with Principality Buildng Society (see our post dated 9th November 2015.) 

RSA remains the dominant home insurance partner for UK building societies, but the loss of Skipton is a significant one for A.J. Gallagher, which continues to work in the sector with mostly small regional lenders.

The deal was signed in September and is expected to go live in December 2016. It is noticeable that at present, home and landlords' insurance is no longer available to new customers on the Skipton Building Society website, which suggests a smooth handover between A.J. Gallagher and L&G has perhaps not been achieved. 

Allianz extends long-term commercial partnership

Allianz has announced the renewal of its commercial insurance partnership with the Retail Motor Industry Federation (RMI). The RMI is the automotive trade body representing thousands of independent and franchised dealers, petrol retailers and bodyshops in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The real significance of the deal is that the two organisations have worked in partnership for over 25 years, which has allowed Allianz to develop a range of tailored "motor trade" insurance propositions for RMI members.

Allianz is often regarded as a relatively minor player in the UK's insurance affinity market, but it does have some significant motor insurance partnerships with Ford and BMW, as wellas a number of travel and pet insurance partnerships; primarily through its Allianz Global Assistance (Mondial) and Petplan brands.