Allianz Benelux has announced it has reached agreement with Monument Re (Monument) for the transfer of its closed book of classical life retail insurances together with 4,500 mortgage loans.

The deal is the fifth transfer in the Belgian market by to Monument and includes a portfolio of 95,000 policies with technical provisions of 1.4 billion euros under Solvency II. Allianz stopped writing new business for this portfolio early 2000s. The classic life Assubel contracts which were underwritten prior to 1988 are out of scope.

In a joint statement the two companies said the priority is to minimize the impact of the transfer for both clients and brokers. It is expected that Allianz Benelux will continue to manage the portfolio in some shape during the transfer period which is expected to take 18 months.

Under the agreement, all related assets and liabilities of the respective portfolio will be transferred to Monument, with protection of the policyholder rights.

Allianz said its market share in the country remains unchanged at around 6 percent. It added it remained committed to the Belgian Market, focusing on open books. Allianz’ employees will not be impacted by the transaction.

For Monument Re it said the transaction marks a “major milestone” in the realisation of its closed life consolidation strategy for the Belgian market. After the respective acquisitions of ABN AMRO Life Capital Belgium, Ethias’ First A portfolio, Alpha Insurance’s traditional and credit life portfolio and recently a part of Curalia’s second pillar pension life insurance portfolio, the current transaction with Allianz “delivers a substantial increase in scale,” and confirms the firm’s position as a leading closed life consolidator in the Belgian market.

Kathleen Van den Eynde, CEO Belgium of Allianz Benelux said: “With this sale Allianz creates leverage to grow. It will further reduce our operational complexity and strengthen our already solid financial position. With its strong track record in acquiring and integrating policies and policyholders, we believe MAB is the ideal candidate to take over this portfolio. Allianz remains fully committed to Belgium and this transaction is consistent with our priorities to serve customers with our core innovative unit-linked and protection solutions. We will focus on continuing our growth path in Life, Health, Employee Benefits and further developing our Property-Casualty offering. We look forward to achieving our market ambitions together with our brokers.”

Manfred Maske, CEO of Monument Re Group added: “We are pleased to announce this transaction, which remains subject to regulatory approval. We look forward to welcoming the policyholders to Monument and would like to take the opportunity to assure them of our commitment to maintaining the high quality service and security that they have enjoyed at Allianz.

“We view Belgium as a key market for Monument Re and we are very pleased to now have the opportunity to take a significant step in realizing our ambitions. Following earlier acquisitions of four other Belgian portfolios this transaction with Allianz helps us to substantially increase scale and confirms Monument Assurance’s position as a leading consolidator in the Belgian market.”