Aviva remains on course for protection dominance

Aviva has seen a slight uplift in its protection sales over the third quarter as it continues its attempt to dominate the market.

The provider said its growth has largely been the result of its bancassurance partnerships and it expected to be the largest player in the protection market next year.

It also launched the second wave of its protection television marketing campaign, although this was done towards the end of the quarter and so will not have affected results significantly.

However its bancassurance operation did suffer a blip during this period when one partner, Santander, was forced to halt sales to retrain it's in branch sales staff.

Despite this the provider saw new protection business grow 2% to £749m (under present value of new business premiums reporting) over the first nine months of 2011 compared to £737m over the same period last year.

A statement said it remained "on course to become the clear market leader in protection business in 2012 as the full effect of our bancassurance partnerships with Santander and Barclays come on stream, alongside continuing relationships with major partners such as the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Post Office."

David Barral, executive marketing director for all Aviva products, told COVER in a November 2009 interview: "The protection and health market is becoming more strategic and important than it perhaps has been in the past. We are in the throes of signing off on our three-year plan and that involves becoming number one in the protection market, full stop."

Overall, UK life and pension sales were up 6% to £8.1bn.