Aviva becomes exclusive life protection provider to Santander

The agreement covers the sale of Aviva's core protection products, including life insurance, critical illness and income protection, which will be sold by Santander through its 1,300 UK branches.

Mark Hodges, chief executive of Aviva's UK business, said:

"As Britain's leading insurer, our strength lies in the breadth and quality of our product portfolio across both general and life insurance and I'm delighted that Santander's customers will benefit from this. Our new distribution agreement will build on our solid existing general insurance relationship with Santander, creating a platform for significant growth across our UK business.

"We aim to provide Santander's customers with a simple, quick and easy way to purchase a range of life protection products according to their specific needs. We know that many UK adults do not have any life insurance cover at all, so making protection choices as simple as possible is really important.

"Aviva has proven its ability to work closely with more than 90 bancassurance partners throughout the world as part of its broad multi-distribution strategy and our new deal with Santander demonstrates our ability to develop strong and lasting partnerships across our UK business."