Life firm stops sales to expats worldwide
Thousands of British expats will not be able to take out life assurance with one of the leading international life assurance companies unless they live in a few small financial centres.
Isle of Man based Zurich Life International is stopping life insurance sales to all but a handful of countries from Friday (December 4) following a ‘strategic business review’.
From the deadline, Zurich will only accept policy applications from customers who have permanent addresses in:
- Bahrain
- Jersey
- Guernsey
- Hong Kong
- Isle of Man
- Qatar
- Singapore
- Taiwan
- United Arab Emirates
- UK
All applications from these countries have to be introduced by a regulated intermediary qualified to give insurance advice.
Zurich will not accept any further business from any US or Japanese nationals regardless of their country of residence. Earlier this year, Zurich stopped writing business in many countries in the Far East, EC and Australia.
Regulation blamed for business decision
Zurich has written to advisors stating: “Zurich believes that the increasing complexity of regulation elsewhere requires resource which is no longer in proportion to the benefits derived from accepting business from these countries.”
Existing business written with Zurich is unaffected by the change of policy.
Zurich has reported a dramatic rise in protection sales so far this year, with business up by over 70% year on year at the end of August.
A Zurich spokesperson said: “We are hopeful of achieving an 80% increase on total business written in 2008. A majority of our protection business is generated in the Middle East but we are working with our distributors to promote more protection sales in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Zurich International Solutions employs almost 600 people in offices in the Isle of Man, Channel Islands, Hong Kong, London, Swindon, Luxembourg, the Middle East and Zurich.
The company’s head office in the Isle of Man employs around 350 people.
Zurich’s primary business is providing insurance-based solutions for expatriates and international investors, as well as employers looking for group benefits schemes for their international employees.
The company has more than 100,000 customers and assets under management exceeding US$4 billion.
