Transfer of Suomi Mutual's life insurance portfolio to OP
Suomi Mutual Life Assurance Company (Suomi Mutual) and OP have agreed on transferring Suomi Mutual's individual life insurance portfolio to OP.
The planned transfer date is 31 December 2015. The transfer requires the approval of the companies' annual general meetings and the Financial Supervisory Authority. The annual general meetings will be held on 29 September 2015.
Suomi Mutual's individual life insurance portfolio comprises around 130,000 contracts, which include some 300,000 insurance policies. As a rule, the policies were taken out before 1 July 1997. Suomi Mutual has not granted new insurance policies after 2005.
In the transfer of the insurance portfolio all insurance contracts will be transferred under their existing conditions and hence the permanent additional benefits granted by Suomi Mutual will remain intact. OP has been managing the insurance portfolio for 10 years already and provided customer service for Suomi Mutual's customers. Consequently, no direct changes are expected and the transfer does not require any action from Suomi Mutual's customers.
- The transfer will bring us a large number of new customers, which will underpin our growth targets in both wealth management and non-life insurance. In terms of OP's solvency, the transaction is neutral, but customers will benefit from the group's solid solvency well into the future, says Sami Jormalainen, Senior Vice President at OP.
- Suomi Mutual has been in a run-off state for over ten years and has distributed sizeable additional benefits to its customers. With the stricter solvency requirements the company's ability to invest the customers' assets profitably has diminished. OP's strong capital adequacy provides added security to paying the promised high technical interest and special benefits in the future, too. Furthermore, Suomi Mutual will be able to manage the rundown phase of the individual pension insurance portfolio efficiently, safeguarding the customers' interests, says Jari Sokka, President and CEO of Suomi Mutual.
- Our insurance management systems have also become outdated, and, in order to cut costs, customer service has not been improved either to match modern requirements. In OP, our customers will have a chance to replace their partly outdated life insurance products and services with modern ones, says Jari Sokka.
- Thanks to the transfer, our customers will have access to modern insurance products and high-quality insurance management services in the form of advanced online and mobile services and such. New customers can also transfer all their banking and insurance matters to OP and thereby gain valuable benefits and bonuses, says Sami Jormalainen from OP.
The individual life insurance portfolio will be transferred to OP Life Assurance Company, excluding personal non-life insurance contracts, which will be transferred to Pohjola Insurance Ltd. With the portfolio transfer, EUR 1.3 billion worth of assets will be transferred from Suomi Mutual, corresponding to the proportion of the insurance portfolio to be transferred of Suomi Mutual's total assets.
For more information, please contact
Customers:
Customer service, tel. +358 10 253 6110 (Mon-Fri from 8.00 to 18.00)
Media:
Senior Vice President Sami Jormalainen, OP / OP Communications, media contacts, tel. +358 50 523 9904
President and CEO Jari Sokka, Suomi Mutual, [email protected], tel. +358 10 253 2150
OP Financial Group is Finland's leading financial services group providing a unique range of banking, wealth management and insurance services. OP's mission is to promote the sustainable prosperity, security and wellbeing of its customer-owners, customers and operating regions. Its objective is to offer the best and most versatile package of loyal customer benefits on the market. OP Financial Group consists of about 180 member cooperative banks, its central cooperative OP Cooperative, and the latter's subsidiaries and affiliates. The Group has a staff of 12,000 and 4.3 million customers.
Suomi Mutual Life Assurance Company was established 125 years ago. It manages the insurance policies of its 175,000 customers and is among the biggest investors in Finland. The value of its investments at the end of June 2015 was EUR 4.6 billion. The company no longer underwrites new business.
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