WESLEYAN BUYS INSURANCE UNIT OF BRITISH MEDICAL ASSOCIATION

UK-based mutual Wesleyan Assurance has bought BMA Services, the general insurance and independent financial adviser (IFA) units of the British Medical Association. BMA Services employs 80 people in its telephone-broking general insurance base in Colchester. Wesleyan CEO Peter McNamara said that the assurer would focus on product innovation to the BMA’s core customer base of medical professionals. He noted that the health sector was “seeing good growth in the market and in the amount of government spending”. Mr McNamara said that BMA Services had 58 registered individuals providing face-to-face advice, which made it a leading independent IFA arm. “Although we are currently being hindered by the better-than-best rules, we are expecting these to go away shortly under the depolarisation proposals”. Wesleyan’s direct sales force in its medical sickness business would expand by between 30% and 40% from its current level of 116, said Mr McNamara, noting that medical sickness business had been growing at 50% a year.