BANCASSURANCE – MAIN INSURANCE DISTRIBUTION AND SALE CHANNEL IN EUROPE

Before the emergence of the crisis, banks’ incomes were preponderantly oriented towards the lending activity, which activity is unsustainable in these circumstances. With the financial crisis, banks have diversified revenues and identified the benefits of sustainable partnerships with insurance institutions (the bancassurance), achieving convergence towards common platforms. The driving factor of the bancassurance system must also be sought in the common need of banks and insurance companies to optimize the structure and efficiency of the distribution channels. Thus, if credit institutions seek to obtain additional revenue by capitalizing the potential of regional networks, initially configured based on own marketing policies, insurance companies are interested in diversifying without significant capital investment, the traditional distribution methods, so that the products and services offered have access to a large number of potential customers