Does Hardy's exit herald an AXA sale?

AXA UK made the shock announcement today that AXA Personal Lines chief executive Steve Hardy has stepped down to “explore new opportunities”.

Hardy’s exit and the performance of AXA Personal Lines raises questions over whether the French insurer will sell the business.

Last month, Insurance Times revealed that AXA personal lines motor is running at 121% combined operating ratio, leading AXA group to reveal in its first quarter results that it was “portfolio cleansing” its direct book, citing the UK as the main factor.

AXA, the world’s largest insurance company by premium, has already shown it is not afraid to make UK divestments. Two years ago, AXA sold its life operations to Resolution and earlier this year also sold Bluefin’s advisory arm, so a sale is not out of the question.

Covea ditches aggregator launch

Covea has scrapped its plans to launch an aggregator that would have competed with the big four price comparison sites – Gocompare, Confused, Comparethemarket and Moneysupermarket.

This is a major U-turn for Covea, as the French mutual had big plans for the aggregator, shown by its massive £20m advertising budget.

In the aggregator world, advertising budget equals business volume, and £20m easily outstripped the budgets of Moneysupermarket and Comparethemarket, leaving only Gocompare and Confused with more to spend.

So why scrap something that started out so ambitiously? Swinton chief executive Christophe Bardet said that the price comparison site was “not consistent” with Covea’s ambitions, and Covea would not reveal anything more.

However, the answer may lie in the stiff competition any new aggregator would face. Last November Covea delayed the launch after its insurer partners questioned how a fledgling price comparison site could gain market share from the big four.

At the time, a Covea spokesman said the delay was “strategic” and that a better-designed aggregator would ease insurers’ concerns.

Ditching the plans altogether hints that Covea could not sort the problem out – but only an official announcement will clarify the situation.