This morning we announced the intended sale of the general insurance (GI) business to the Allianz UK Group (Allianz), subject to regulatory approval. GI will become part of Allianz and the business will then be integrated with LV= GI, beginning in early 2020.

Legal & General (L&G) has been approached regularly about the opportunity to buy the GI business. This has been largely due to the digital journey we have been on, the capability of our people and the potential of the business.

A strategic review by L&G concluded that a specialist general insurance company such as Allianz is a natural owner for the L&G GI business and its customer base, and is best placed to continue to invest and scale in the insurance market.

The acquisition of the L&G GI business provides Allianz with further opportunity to grow their home insurance portfolio and fully aligns with Allianz Group’s ambitions to become a leading customer-centric general insurer across its key markets globally.

Once Allianz becomes the majority shareholder of LV=GI, and the integration of the L&G GI business with LV= GI is complete, LV= GI will have more than 7 million retail customers, attracting GWP in excess of £2billion, becoming the fourth largest insurer in the UK household market and strengthening its position as the UK’s third largest personal lines insurer.

We would like to assure you that the service we provide you and your customers’ remains business as usual. For the time being there will be no changes to the products or services we provide you or your customers. We continue to be open to new business opportunities as we continue the growth strategy of the business.

The L&G GI brand will continue to exist in the UK market for up to three years as part of the agreement, as we fully integrate with LV= GI 2020 onwards, so there will be no impact to the service we provide.

As we move through regulatory approval stages in the coming months we will keep you closely informed on what comes next in this new and exciting chapter for us. It is important to note that we will continue to compete with Allianz until the transaction completes takes place later this year. Until then, competition law rules mean there are things that we are unable to know or share between the two companies.

Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to continuing to partner with you in the future.