New Zealand insurer Tower is acquiring a portfolio of insurance business underwritten for Australian lender ANZ Group for NZ$14 million (US$10.22 million).
Tower will buy ANZ’s rights and obligations relating to the underwritten products and bring the portfolio into its direct business, the company says in a statement on February 22.
The deal, which is expected to take place on March 21, will allow the policyholders to migrate on to Tower’s cloud-based digital platform.
Tower Chief Executive Officer Blair Turnbull says premiums from the portfolio contributed NZ$40 million to the company’s gross written premiums in 2020.
“The deal delivers positive value for Tower and its shareholders by ending all future ANZ commission payments on the portfolio,” he says in the statement. “We have a tried and true method to migrate customers from legacy platforms and products to our new technology, which improves the customer experience and delivers scale efficiencies.”
Auckland-based Tower had NZ$745.35 billion of total assets as of September 2020.