Nationwide partners with RSA for UK's largest building society affinity deal

Nationwide Building Society has announced a new 5 year home insurance partnership with RSA, which will take effect from February 2017. The account, which has been held by Direct Line Group (DLG) for nearly 15 years, was worth just over £200m to the insurer in 2014. It is understood that the business was put out to tender by Nationwide in 2014 and there have been market rumours since Summer 2015, that RSA would be its new home insurance partner.   

The loss of the partnership represents a considerable blow to DLG's home insurance account. Not surprisingly perhaps, DLG has suggested that the Nationwide partnership was not as profitable as other household business and has emphasised that policies will effectively be "run-off" until Spring 2018.  

Nationwide is likely to be RSA's largest corporate partner and gives the insurer even greater market presence with mortgage lenders, where it currently works with a range of banks (Yorkshire, Clydesdale and Bank of Ireland) and building societies (including Yorkshire, West Brom and Nottingham). 

Nationwide continues to partner with LV= for motor insurance and Legal & General for life and protection products. 

Asda cuts short its Brightside partnership

Asda Money has announced the end of its motor insurance partnership with Brightside; at least for new business. The two organisations have worked together since 2012, when a home and motor insurance partnership was signed, with hopes of generating £70 million GWP "within 18 months". 

The motor partnership was renewed in March 2014; supposedly for a period of 3 years and in March 2015, Brightside signed a deal to provide a motor aggregator to Asda Money customers. It is understood that following this decision, Brightside will remain the provider for Asda Money's car and van renewal book. The Hood Group replaced Brightside as home insurance partner in July 2014, with policies underwritten by RSA.

The suggestion has been made that this is a strategic decision by Asda to wind down new business sales of its financial services products, but at this stage, it is not known how and whether this will impact on the retailer's other insurance partnerships.  

Asda has a reputation for its frequent changes of insurance partners and relatively short-term deals. At the time of writing, it also works with BDML Connect for pet insurance and, since October 2015, with Insure & Go for travel insurance. 

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.