Jelf sells personal lines business to A-Plan

Jelf has sold the majority of its personal lines book to A-Plan.

Around 55,000 policies transferred to A-Plan when the deal was agreed last October – the vast majority of which have remained, according to the high street broker’s chief executive Carl Shuker. A-Plan already handled over 600,000 customers.

Shuker confirmed to Insurance Times the high-street broker had picked up two new offices through the deal, in Evesham and Malvern, along with 19 new staff members from Jelf.

Shuker explained that he and Jelf chief executive Phil Barton had come to an agreement in which A-Plan would purchase the business for an unconfirmed price. Jelf will pass future personal lines customers onto A-Plan in a distribution arrangement that was included as part of the deal.

Shuker said: “We respect them very much as a high quality commercial lines SME broker in the same way that I believe they have a high regard for us as a high quality personal lines broker.

“It represents a deal we are very happy with and is very meaningful for us.”

Offices

But Shuker said the rate for opening new offices would be unchanged by the influx of new customers.

“We will still be targeting opening three or four new branches each year,” Shuker said. “We distributed the new customers from Jelf to our offices in a very geo-targeted way to the branch that was most appropriate.”

As well losing 19 staff members to A-Plan, another 33 Jelf employees took redundancy following the deal, 17 voluntarily. Another 59 Jelf personal lines staff were redeployed within the business.

In striking the deal, Jelf will now put a greater focus on its commercial SME book of business.

A spokesperson for Jelf said: “The alliance will enable Jelf to focus greater attention and resources towards its core SME Commercial and private clients, strengthening the firm’s ability to deliver leading solutions within these markets.”

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