Management of Ark Life, an AIB subsidiary, has predicted that the life assurance company has taken poll position from Irish Life for gaining new business in 1998. Mr Brian Woods, Ark Life finance director, said annual premium equivalent (APE) sales rose by 63 per cent, from £46.5 million in 1997 to £75.7 million last year. APE is a combination of total annual premium sales plus 10 per cent of single premium sales.
Competitors would be generating growth of about 20 per cent, Mr Woods said, while Irish Life would need growth "of the order of 30 per cent" to remain in the number one position for new business. Irish Life had an APE of £58.8 million in 1997.
Ark Life could be "fairly confident" it was now the number one in terms of new business, Mr Woods said.
The company's managing director, Mr Gerry Byrne, said the results confirmed that the bancassurance model had emerged as "a real force". He said about 90 per cent of 160,000 regular and single premium customers came from AIB's one million-strong pool of personal banking customers.
New regular premium business amounted to £54.2 million, an increase of 51 per cent on 1997. Single premium business had sales of £215 million last year, an increase of 101 per cent. Mr Byrne said Personal Investment Plans (PIPs) and Personal Equity Plans (PEPs) continued to dominate the life savings market. Ark Life had sold £10 million of new regular pensions business for the first time in 1998 and would be entering the Group Pensions market this year, targeting small to medium-sized enterprises.
He added that the industry was seeing consolidation and "a melting down", with CGU having a 28 per cent stake in Hibernian - they are now reported to be considering the future of this holding - Irish Progressive being subsumed by Irish Life through the merger with Irish Permanent, and carpet-baggers possibly threatening the mutual status of such companies as Standard Life and Scottish Provident. However, he did not see new competitors coming into the market from Europe unless they bought into distribution networks.
