A more than 150-year-old insurance brand is fading, as its last remaining lines of business are sold to another insurer.
Allianz Group announced that it plans to sell the U.S. personal lines business of Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company to ACE Group in a $365 million deal that effectively removes a well-known brand from the market.
The sale will give ACE Group the renewal rights, reinsurance of existing liabilities and access to roughly 1,100 agents and brokers. The policies are mostly those of high net worth clients, ACE said.
“High net worth personal lines remains a strategic growth area for ACE and ACE Private Risk Services has quickly established itself in this space,” said ACE Chairman and CEO Evan Greenberg. “The addition of the personal lines business of Fireman’s Fund will reinforce and advance ACE’s position as a premier provider of insurance to the high net worth market. We are proud to welcome their valued clients and producers to our community.”
The move is the second for ACE in the high net worth business, having acquired similar accounts from Atlantic Mutual in 2007.
Allianz, which merged with Fireman’s Fund’s personal lines business, said the sale of the high net worth book of business will allow it to focus more wholly on its commercial property/casualty business in the U.S. and Canada. Together, the two businesses are expected to total more than $3 billion in revenue.
Fireman’s Fund commercial lines business will also be integrated into Allianz, with all active products moving to the global insurer.
Allianz bought Fireman’s Fund in 1991 for more than $3 billion as a bid to expand further in the U.S.
