Following Wal-Mart’s lead, IKEA has decided to offer insurance products through their global leading furniture stores, rolling out trial sales of a range of policies at select stores within the next few weeks, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article.
On October 1
st a few select IKEA stores in Sweden began selling child and pregnancy insurance branded Omifall.
Over the next few weeks, the Swedish stores aim to extend their offerings to home insurance products as well, according to the Wall Street Journal’s source.
The test runs in the aforementioned select stores are an unofficial soft launch with the initial plan being to target the 2.5 million members of the company’s loyalty club in Sweden, before potentially expanding their product offerings into other markets.
IKEA’s club consists of a staggering 59 million members worldwide. The company did not comment on the extent of their rollout.
Nevertheless, these insurance offerings could prove to be more of a focal product for the furniture giant as the company’s 88 year old founder, Ingvar Kamprad, yields control to his three sons.
Unsurprisingly the company who is responsible for the child and home insurance products offered by IKEA, called the Ikano Group, is owned by Kamprad’s three sons.
Mathias, Jonas and Peter have been kept at arms distance from IKEA but in 2013 the company announced Mr. Kamprad would be stepping down from his post on the board of Inter IKEA Holding, with his eldest son Mathias assuming the role as chairman.
This move could spark further outrage from agents and brokers as another massive corporation represents one more threat to their distribution channels.
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