RSA’s Direct Line deal highlights its refocus on industrial strains

RSA is pushing forward with its shift in the direction of industrial strains within the UK because it accomplished the acquisition of Direct Line’s brokered industrial strains operations in September 2023. This follows RSA’s exit from private motor insurance coverage in March 2023, amid rumours it’ll promote its complete private strains portfolio later this 12 months.

GlobalData’s 2022UK SME Insurance coverage Survey discovered that within the industrial house, Direct Line is strongest inside motor strains. It options within the prime 5 market shares for 2 of the 16 industrial insurance coverage merchandise GlobalData asks about single van insurance coverage (3.6%) and van fleet insurance coverage (3.9%). RSA didn’t characteristic within the prime 5 for any motor merchandise, so this buy instantly made RSA a a lot bigger participant within the industrial motor market.

The transfer from private to industrial strains seems to be a stable technique within the present local weather. Insurers within the private strains house are struggling to make a revenue. Motor insurance coverage has seen premiums rise by file quantities all through 2023 amid important claims inflation. Consequently, insurers have been struggling to maintain premiums aggressive. In the meantime, within the family insurance coverage market, the full quantity of premiums and the variety of contracts each declined in 2022. There’s a barely totally different image within the industrial market; though industrial motor noticed a really small decline in 2022 (-0.3%) when it comes to premiums, industrial property grew by 18.5%.

As shoppers are frequently being squeezed by the cost-of-living disaster, private line merchandise have gotten more durable to make a revenue on. Whereas it has not been a simple interval for companies both, some strains (comparable to industrial property) have continued to develop sharply. RSA repositioning as a industrial insurance coverage specialist due to this fact seems to be a coherent technique primarily based on the difficulties many insurers are having inside private strains.