Insurer Allianz pulls out of commercial insurance lines
Tuesday, 28 May 2019
Global insurer Allianz is pulling out of the commercial motor, public liability and property insurance markets following a review of its New Zealand business.
The company would write no new policies, Allianz New Zealand chief executive Marc Guppy said in a letter to insurance brokers.
'After much consideration, and following a review of the strategic opportunities available to our business in New Zealand, Allianz has made the difficult decision to exit the three lines of business – commercial motor and Fleet, public and products liability and property insurance.'
From May 31 the company would stop underwriting new business policies for those products in New Zealand, Guppy said.
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Some of its other insurance products in New Zealand would remain, including its Allianz Partners travel insurance business, which sells travel insurance through banks including the ANZ.
Allianz would also continue to sell marine insurance.
'Allianz will continue to manage any existing and future claims and policy servicing queries through our underwriting and claims teams based in New Zealand,' Guppy said.
There have been growing concerns that New Zealand has become less attractive to insurers following the series of earthquakes that shock Christchurch, Kaikoura and Wellington in recent years.
Insurance is becoming more difficult to get in parts of New Zealand, and that could have a flow-on effect to house prices.
IAG, which owns State, AMI and NZI and has almost half the New Zealand market, announced in March that it was was restricting its coverage in Wellington.
A spokesperson said, because of the higher earthquake risk in that part of the country, people wanting new contents policies could find it difficult.
The move by IAG followed Tower's move to 'risk-based pricing', which led to increases in the cost of cover in high-risk areas, such as Wellington.