ZURICH AND UK PRUDENTIAL SIGN PENSIONS DISTRIBUTION DEAL

Zurich Advice Network, the tied-distribution arm of Swiss group Zurich Financial Services (ZFS) has signed a distribution deal with UK Prudential that will give ZFS customers access to several Prudential products. The move is one of the first agreements between major players intending to exploit the anticipated depolarisation of financial product distribution in the UK. ZFS noted that it planned to offer products from other companies in cases where it did not have a suitable offering available, adding that the benefits of the agreement post-depolarisation would be that customers who had maturing pension funds from Zurich Life, Allied Dunbar and Eagle Star would be offered an annuity provided by Prudential. The companies hope that the arrangement will generate new annuity premiums of more than £1m in the first five years after depolarisation. The deal, initially for five years, covers all conventional pension annuities.