6 November 2006
• Sharp growth in new business (year-to-date to September 30 2006)
• Single premium individual pensions up 121% to £1.0 bn
• Overall new insured pension sales (including regular premium sales) up 46% to £1.81 bn Single Premium Equivalent (SPE)
• Assets under management increased to £10.0 bn
• New ‘A-Day’ pension rules boost sales
Winterthur Life today reported a sharp increase in year-to-date (YTD) single premium individual pensions business up 121% to £1.0 billion (2005: £463 million) reflecting the continued strong progress of its predominantly single premium proposition. The company also reports a 46% increase in YTD 2006 new insured pensions business SPE to £1.8 billion (2005: £1.24 billion) while assets under management grew to £10.0 billion, up from £9.0 billion, as at September 30 2005.
Mike Kellard, chief executive officer, Winterthur Life, says the company is continuing to benefit from its new A-Day product offering, which contained a distinctive range of products to meet retirement planning needs. “Winterthur Life’s single premium pensions business has surged as a result of the company’s A-Day product suite and the attractiveness of its proposition to top advisers and their high net worth (HNW) clients. This offering has helped the company attract record business from advisers over the last nine months and in particular the six months since the new A-Day pension rule changes in April.
“Winterthur has also launched a range of new adviser services as part of its Professional Edge proposition, from new online adviser services, a new range of trusts on its investment bond range and adviser training and education programmes. These have helped the company cement its reputation amongst top advisers and their high net worth clients.”
In the UK pensions segment:
• Single premium insured pension sales up 62% to £1.3 billion (2005: £0.8 bn)
• Single premium Personal Pensions up 137% to £523 million (2005: £221 mn)
• Income Drawdown up 266% to £228 million (2005: £62 mn)
• Single Premium Individual Section 32 up 359% to £73 million (2005: £16 mn)
• Annual Premium Group Pensions up 8% to £40.5 million (2005: £37.6 mn)
In the UK investments segment:
• New investment bond new business grew 72% to £77.7 million (2005: £45.2 mn).
The successful results build still further on the company’s overall achievements for the full year 2005, which saw UK gross written premiums topping £1.54 billion with a further £191 million in non-insured single premium SIPP sales.
Winterthur Life focuses on top advisers and their HNW clients with a sharply defined market proposition and quality product and service offering. With this strong focus, the company remains very confident in its ability to continue to deliver strong growth.
-End-
For further information:
Paul Riddell Winterthur Life, Press Office +44 (0)1256 798099
Sandra Fulton Winterthur Life, Press Office +44 (0)1256 798310
Christine Wood Financial Dynamics +44 (0)20 7269 7253
Notes to Editors
About Winterthur Life UK Limited
Winterthur Life UK Limited is part of Winterthur Group, a leading Swiss insurance company with its international headquarters in Winterthur, Switzerland.
Winterthur Life UK offers pensions and investments for high net worth clients distributed via top tier IFAs and is renowned for its innovative approach to financial products. Its philosophy of transparent product propositions offers advisers a range of retirement and investment solutions with an open charging structure.
Winterthur Life UK is an experienced provider of single premium personal pensions, trustee investment plans and corporate pensions via IFAs and a leading provider of self-investment retirement plans like Self Invested Personal Pensions (“Sipps”).
Any opinions expressed in this media communication are made as at the date of publication but are subject to change without notice. Past performance is not a guide to the future. The value of shares/units and the income from them can go down as well as up. Exchange rate fluctuations may cause the value of underlying investments to fall as well as rise. Yields are not guaranteed and may fall or rise.
Winterthur Life UK Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.
www.winterthur-ifa.co.uk
Winterthur Group
Winterthur is the leading insurer in Switzerland, and ranks among the top ten all-line carriers in Europe. With a history spanning more than 130 years, Winterthur's life insurance, pension and non-life businesses are based mainly in Western Europe, but the group also has activities in Central and Eastern Europe, the US and Asia. Using a variety of channels, the group manages a balanced product portfolio for private clients as well as small and medium-sized companies. Winterthur operates in 17 countries, and has around 19,000 employees and 13 million clients worldwide. In the first nine months of 2006, the group achieved a business volume of 24.7 billion Swiss francs, and reported assets under management of 162.5 billion Swiss francs as of September 30, 2006. Winterthur is a 100% subsidiary of Credit Suisse Group, a leading global financial services company headquartered in Zurich. Further information about Winterthur can be found at www.winterthur.com.
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