Tower, ANZ bury hatchet over policyholder dispute

Tower, the insurer controlled by Guinness Peat Group, will have to compete with Vero Insurance New Zealand for ANZ National Bank's policyholders after they agreed to end an 18-month dispute.    

The firms have been in a tussle since a March 2009 High Court ruled Tower was entitled to keep renewing policies sold to ANZ customers after the bank decided to change its provider to Vero.

Tower managing director Rob Flannagan told BusinessDesk the dispute was going in circles with appeals and counter-appeals and both parties decided to call time. That leaves the 196,000 policies held by some 110,000 people open game to both Tower and Vero.

"There were ongoing legal cases for the rest of this year" and it was in everyone's interest to reach an agreement, Flannagan said.

"There's nothing dramatic about the settlement."

Tower's shares rose 0.5% to $1.86 in trading today, while ANZ, the parent of ANZ National, was unchanged at $30.70 on the NZX.

ANZ National tried to block Tower from renewing the insurer's policies, saying the customers belonged to the bank and should be transferable to its new partner.

Businesswire.co.nz

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name:
Your email:	Not displayed to the public
Comment:
Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved.

Anti-spam verification:

Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.

Related News:

BPG - Blackpearl Acquires US AI Platform to Accelerate Growth
TGG - Response to media speculation
ARB - Annual Meeting Date and Director Nominations
CNU - Q4 FY25 Connections Update
MOVE FY25 Results and Investor Briefing 29 August 2025
RYM - First quarter trading update
July 11th Morning Report
IKE Announces equity raising of A$20 million
Chorus full year results date
FPH 2025 Notice of Annual Meeting and Voting Form