Friends Life is to consolidate its individual protection propositions onto a single platform for all new business aimed at establishing a best of breed proposition for the IFA market.
This will be built using the platform from the life assurance business recently acquired from Bupa. It will also draw on the best elements of the Friends Provident individual protection offering and the heritage protection business acquired from AXA.
Friends Life, a new organisation bringing together the UK operations of Friends Provident and the life assurance businesses acquired from Bupa and AXA UK, believes this approach provides the strongest base for building a market leading protection offering for IFAs and strategic partners.
Commenting on the new strategic decision, Trevor Matthews, CEO Friends Life said:
"We announced in February our intention to consolidate all of our individual protection business onto a single cost effective platform and we are confident that using the model from the recently acquired life assurance business of Bupa as the building block is the best way forward. It will enable us to offer the optimum protection product range to support our plans in the individual and corporate protection markets in the UK, whilst allowing us to continue developing a low cost-operating model for our business. I am in no doubt that the new management structure we are implementing as part of this review will enable us to meet the needs of those IFAs and strategic business partners we work with and ensure our award-winning service levels are maintained."
The company will continue to manage its three existing individual protection propositions and aims to consolidate the range under the Friends Life by the end of 2011. As part of this process, Friends Life will work in partnership with IFAs and strategic partners to ascertain how to implement the optimal solution for their business.
As part of this evolution a new management structure for the individual business of Friends Life will be implemented. This will see Steve Payne, CEO of BHA, assume responsibility for developing and implementing the strategy for our Individual Protection business marketed through IFAs. Graham Harvey, Managing Director Individual, will be responsible for developing and implementing the strategy for our strategic distribution partners.
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