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Legal & General sells home insurance business to Allianz for £242m

The deal comes two years after the German company bought a stake in LV’s general insurance business.

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Legal & General will no longer offer policies to households after bosses sold its home insurance business to German rival Allianz in a deal worth £242 million.

The two firms had been in exclusive discussions for months over the deal, with Allianz keen to expand its presence in the UK.

Allianz also revealed on Friday morning it was spending a further £365 million buying up the rest of the Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society (LV) it does not already own – valuing LV at £1.1 billion.

According to L&G, the insurance business is mainly made up of home insurance policies, with gross written premiums of £410 million in 2018, although it failed to make any operating profits.

In 2017 Allianz made its first major foray into the British insurance market, buying a 49% stake in LV’s general insurance business in a £713 million deal which made the German company the third-biggest insurer in the market.

L&G is focusing more heavily on its investment business, which was responsible for investing £1 trillion on behalf of investors last year, and has been shedding non-core and overseas assets.

These include selling savings businesses Mature Savings, Cofunds and Suffolk Life, alongside international insurance businesses in the Netherlands, France and India.

L&G said the money from the sale will be reinvested into its core businesses.

Chief executive Nigel Wilson said: “Selling the General Insurance business is the right decision for our customers and shareholders.

“We continue to focus on delivering against our strategy, allocating shareholders’ capital rigorously.”

Jon Dye, chief executive of Allianz UK, said: “This is a good outcome for all the parties involved and acquiring a high-quality business with two million customers to combine with the LV= General Insurance business is a strong result.”

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