Principality extends partnership with L&G

Principality Building Society, the UK's 6th largest, has announced a new home insurance partnership with Legal & General. Some reports have suggested that the building society has "renewed" this partnership with L&G, but it is in fact, a new relationship for household cover. 

Legal & General has, however, partnered the Principality since 2013 when it replaced Aviva as the society's life insurance and financial planning provider. Principality also partners with Dignity for pre-paid funeral plans. 

The selection of L&G follows a tender exercise and sees the replacement of RSA as its home insurance partner. Nevertheless, RSA remains a market leader in terms of the number of building society home insurance partnerships, including Yorkshire, the West Brom and Nottingham. 

Homeserve selects Aviva as its underwriting partner

Homeserve, the UK's second largest provider of home assistance policies, has selected Aviva as its underwriting partner in a 5 year deal, commencing on 18 November 2015. 

Homeserve mainly markets its products through a range of affinity partners (in the UK and overseas) and these include Thames Water, Anglian Water, United Utilities and Aviva itself. 

Rumours originally surfaced in the Summer that Homeserve was seeking to replace AXA (Inter Partner Assistance), its underwriting partner since 2007, as part of a tender process.

The value of the partnership is said to be in the region of £300 million GWP per anum, which represents a significant sum for both insurers. The UK home assistance market has been valued at approximately £1.3 billion per anum. 

Sun Life partners with Brightside on home insurance

Following its recent entry into the pet insurance market with BDML (see our post dated 30th September 2015 for details), Sun Life has confirmed a new partnership with Brightside for home insurance, using the broker's existing household insurer panel. 

The partnership is for an initial 5 year period and supports Sun Life's ambitious growth plans of securing 250,000 customers in the next 4 years; even without an existing book of business to develop. At the time of writing, a household insurance quote system is not yet available on the Sun Life website. 

Sun Life is planning to add a number of new general insurance products and features to its range, following the recent recruitment of Simon Stanney as its GI Director. 

Brightside currently works with a small number of other partners; mostly on motor insurance. These include Asda Money (car), Churchill (van), NatWest (van) and Royal London (car). 

Virgin Money launches insurance partnership with Ageas...at last

Virgin Money has launched its new home and motor partnership with Ageas, having originally announced it in December 2014 (see our post dated 23rd December 2014 for details). As expected, Ageas will underwrite the household products and will use a panel of insurers for the motor product. Ageas will be providing the sales, servicing and claims capabilities for the new partnership. 

It is understood that the partnership does not involve the transfer of an existing book of business from BDML, Virgin Money's previous home and motor insurance partner and despite the attraction of the brand, the volume of Virgin Money insurance customers has never been considered significant.  

Nevertheless, Virgin Money does have a wide range of channels including 70 "stores" and "lounges", although this branch network does not offer mortgage advice, or the long-cherished "point of sale" household insurance opportunity for Ageas.  

Virgin Money continues to work with Insure & Go for its travel insurance, UK Insurance for pet insurance and Friends Life for life cover. 

Bupa chosen to partner with Benenden

Benenden, a leading healthcare and "well-being" provider has announced a partnership with Bupa, which has won a tender to administer a range of Benenden's products and to arrange diagnostic and treatment services for its 900,000 customers. The new partnership will extend the network of UK hospitals available to Benenden's customers.

The partnership is understood to be for 5 years and worth in the region of £200 million over this period. In July 2015, Bupa took over responsibility for Benenden's health cash plan product; which, since 2011, had been underwritten by Engage Mutual. 

Benenden recently announced a home insurance partnership with Hood Group (see our post dated 23rd July 2015 for details) and also works with Insure & Go for travel insurance. 

Sun Life re-launches GI partnerships with BDML

Sun Life has announced the launch of a pet insurance partnership with affinity intermediary, BDML Connect; part of the Markerstudy Group. The cover is underwritten by Zenith Insurance, also part of Markerstudy. 

The launch of pet insurance is its first foray into the general insurance market for some time and follows the recruitment of Simon Stanney as "GI Director" in July. At the same time, Sun Life suggested that the launch of pet and subsequently home insurance, would be followed by car insurance and that the business aimed to secure 250,000 insurance customers in the next 4 years, based on a direct offering of "straightforward and affordable" products. 

Sun Life has previously partnered with Key Connect to provide home insurance, but the new provider has not yet been announced. It currently partners with a number of other providers including Golden Charter (funeral plans), Hugh James (will-writing) and Scottish Friendly (ISAs).