Prudential secures advisory partnership with Cambridge Building Society

Prudential Financial Planning (PFP) has secured a new partnership with the Cambridge Building Society; the UK's 14th largest society, with approximately 130,000 members. The partnership covers mortgage-related protection covers and, upon request, financial advice for pensions, investment and retirement planning. This follows PFP's decision to expand its protection panel to include 8 other providers, following a partnership with SImplyBiz in December 2017.  

Cambridge Building Society previously partnered with Legal & General for protection products and continues to work with RSA for home insurance and with Travelex for its travel money service.

The society's website also highlights that its "will writing" partner, The Will Writing Company (part of The Estate Planning Group) ceased trading at the end of 2017 and is now in receivership. It is worth noting that The Will Writing Company has previously partnered with the Dudley, Hanley Economic, Leeds, Melton Mowbray, Newcastle and Nottingham building societies. 

Hood Group and Allianz launch travel partnership with P&O

Hood Group has announced a new travel insurance partnership with P&O Ferries. The initial announcement was made by Hood Group in September 2017, but the formal launch has only now taken place. Cigna had previously been the travel insurance partner of P&O Ferries. 

The cover is being underwritten by Allianz Worldwide Partners (AWP), with which Hood Group signed a long-term partnership deal in September 2017. 

Hood Group has been particularly active in developing affinity travel partnerships since entering this market in July 2014 and numbers More Th>n, Legal & General and RAC Group as its partners. The first two are also underwritten by AWP whereas at present, the RAC partnership is underwritten by AXA. 

P&O Cruises (an unrelated business) continues to partner with Holiday Extras for its travel insurance, although this too is underwritten by AWP. 

Clydesdale Banking Group partners with Royal London for Over 50s life cover

Royal London has been appointed as the new provider of Over 50s life cover to customers of Yorkshire and Clydesdale Banks; members of the CYGB group. The product is available either via the banks' branch networks or online.

Clydesdale and Yorkshire had previously partnered with Engage Mutual Assurance to provide a similar product, although this deal has not been in place for a number of years. In addition, both banks continue to provide mainstream protection products through a partnership with Legal & General. Interestingly, L&G does have its own Over 50s life offering which it distributes through other affinity partners. 

The banks continue to partner with RSA for home and motor insurance, Hiscox for "high net worth" covers, AIG for travel insurance and Arthur J. Gallagher for commercial insurance.

The deal suggests an increasing appetite for partnerships by Royal London. The insurer has never been a significant player in this channel, although it did launch a major life deal with Post Office Money in January 2017.  

Hood Group partners with Canopius for MPPI cover

Hood Group has announced a partnership with Lloyd's Syndicate 4444, managed by Canopius Managing Agents. The partnership covers the mortgage payment protection insurance provided by Hood's "Select & Protect" brand, which mainly distributes general insurance products through mortgage intermediaries and IFAs. 

Many mainstream mortgage lenders have steered clear of offering MPPI products in recent years, but they continue to be marketed by many mortgage brokers and IFAs. As well as through Select & Protect, MPPI is also provided by its direct competitors including Uinsure (also underwritten by Canopius) and Paymentshield (underwritten by Covea).

Select & Protect's MPPI product was previously underwritten by Aviva and Davies Managed Systems will now be responsible for all new claims. 

Nationwide and RSA launch home insurance partnership

Nearly 2 years after the partnership was announced (see our post dated 17 December 2015 for details), Nationwide Building Society has launched its new home insurance partnership with RSA, which will operate for the next 5 years. 

The launch was later than originally anticipated (February 2017), but is likely to represent annual GWP to RSA of between £180 - £200 million. One source has suggested that the partnership will result in up to one million new household customers for RSA, but this figure seems overly ambitious given the figures previously quoted by DLG; the insurer which lost the account after 15 years.  

Nevertheless, the partnership is likely to be RSA's single largest affinity deal and does reinforce its already impressive range of partnerships with mortgage lenders, including Yorkshire Bank, Bank of Ireland and Yorkshire and West Bromwich building societies.    

Nationwide has over 15 million customers. It also works with Legal & General for the provision of life insurance, but exited the motor insurance market and its partnership with LV= earlier this year (see our post dated 30th May 2017 for details). 

Unite's new car insurance partner shows increasing complexity of affinity deals

Unite, the UK's largest trade union already provides a range of financial services to its members and has recently launched a new car insurance comparison service with "Unite Protect Insurance". This is a trading name of Union Income Benefit (UIB), which also provides a range of other insurance services to the union, including AD, travel and Female Cancer covers. 

UIB provides the "Unite Protect" branded aggregator via Vast Visibility Limited; a digital specialist with a background in motorcycle insurance and which also offers white label comparison sites for brands including Asda and Bauer Media titles (e.g. Car, Motorcycle News, Heat and Grazia). 

The situation is further complicated by Unite's separate provision of car insurance through its longstanding relationship with household insurance specialist, UIA; itself a provider to a range of other large trade unions.   

UIA partners with Autonet to provide car insurance to Unite's members, as well as travel insurance with AllClear Insurance Services and pet insurance with Petwise.

The range of separate and competing deals available to Unite's members is not altogether unusual in the trade union sector. This may reflect the need to cover different distribution strategies, but will inevitably impact on the clarity of marketing messages and the need to share margins with a wide range of providers.