King Price Insurance plans to “go big” with its life insurance business in the next quarter and is expanding its footprint in Europe.
Chief executive Gideon Galloway said the insurer has grown by 40% year-on-year since it launched 10 years ago, even growing by more than 20% during Covid-19.
The company expects it will have close to R4 billion in gross premium income by the end of its financial year on 30 June. Of the R4bn, R3bn comes from its short-term insurance operations, while its life insurance business has generated about R400 million in premium income.
Galloway said the company’s expansion into Europe will be built on its acquisition of a 20% stake in Danish insurer Next in 2021.
It has also convinced easyJet founder, Stelios Haji-Ioannou, to let King Price acquire a licence to use the easySure brand. Haji-Ioannou’s “easy” family of brands – which include easyHotel, easyCar and easyJet – are well known in Europe.
The insurer intends to expand the easySure brand throughout Europe and into other continents, Galloway said.
King Price has completed the acquisition of Stangen, which it announced early in 2020. However, it halted its plans to go big with it, because of the disruption caused by Covid-19.
King Price Life has just under a million lives insured through its acquisition of Stangen, and it will launch into the market with the Stangen brand, and a new brand called King Price Livin’.
Stangen had 250 000 lives insured when King Price acquired it, so it has grown by four times “without us launching our King Price Livin’ brand yet”, said deputy chief executive Rhett Finch.
“It’s the brand that we think is going to unlock growth in the next couple of years,” said Finch.
King Price planned to provide simple and easy-to-understand comprehensive life insurance.
He said the goal was to insure five million lives within five years.
