Swinton Group has purchased the high street insurance intermediary business Budget Retail from the Budget Group for an undisclosed sum.
The deal gives Swinton an annual income of more than £500m. Swinton's existing 350 high street branches (including those of its brand Colonnade, acquired in 2002) are now joined by 92 Budget branches offering home, car, travel, pet and most other forms of personal cover.
Last year Swinton had a gross premium income of £440m and expects premium income to grow to more than £600m next year following today's purchase.
The company has made over 250 broker acquisitions during the past five years.
The Budget Retail brand will be maintained for 12 months, after which the branches will trade under one of the Swinton brand names.
Patrick Smith, chief executive of Swinton, saids “This deal means that we have over three times the national coverage of our nearest competitor. We are within easy reach of almost everyone in the UK. This gives us a huge advantage over our major competitors who only offer telephone or internet contact.
“Research shows that when customers need assistance with their insurance impersonal interactive voice response is strongly disliked by most people. Our professional teams, working right across the UK, give us a great opportunity to capitalise on our personal service operated through local branches either face to face or on the telephone. Our successful growth has shown the clear benefits of providing this personal service.”
All Budget branch staff will remain employed by Swinton. The total number of Swinton employees is now 3,000, made up of staff working in the branches, call centres and head office functions.
As part of the deal Swinton will also take over Budget's taxi and motor-home units based in Warrington and Coventry respectively.
Around 230,000 policies will be added to the Swinton database and the combined operation will hold more than 2m insurance policies.
Smith added: “We have strategic plans to continue this growth and enhance our current business capabilities by increasing our customer base through further improvements in direct marketing, increasing our diversification of product and enhancing the relationship between our branches and our online business.
“We intend to keep all the new branches open as we believe that Budget's coverage is complementary to our existing network and the increased capacity will allow Swinton Group to handle our planned growth."
He added: “Our model has great capacity for expansion and we intend to take on the giants of our industry and show that, by caring more for our customers, we can become the leading player in personal lines distribution.”
