The ’strategic move’ allows the group to ‘dominate across both B2B and B2C arenas’

Staysure Group, which owns travel insurance provider Staysure, has acquired Rock Insurance Group – a travel insurance white labelling and partnerships business.

The deal is set to be a mutually beneficial business decision that aims to expand the group’s customer base as well as enable the group access to sell Rock’s products and services.

The move also plans to further extend Staysure Group’s footprint following its acquisitions of Avanti travel insurance in August 2017 and aggregator PayingTooMuch.com in November 2019 - these companies doubled in size prior to the pandemic, increasing the group’s overall customer base to over four million.

Rock Insurance will continue to be managed as a standalone business, led by managing director Antony Martin from its office in Crawley.

Ryan Howsam, founder and chief executive of Staysure Group, said: “Bringing our businesses together further strengthens our position as the market leader and allows us to dominate across both B2B and B2C arenas, offering quality innovative policies to a much wider range of consumers.

“Rock captures sections of the market which Staysure currently doesn’t operate in, so this new partnership continues to cement our strategic growth plans.

“We’re extremely excited to be working with the Rock team and exploring new opportunities to grow and expand our businesses together.”

‘Synergistic partnership’

Rock Insurance Group, which began trading in 2001 with a focus on travel, gadget and commercial insurance, provides technology-led partnership solutions for travel and financial services companies, including Jet2, OnTheBeach and Tesco Bank.

Martin added: “We are delighted to be joining the Staysure Group in a synergistic partnership that combines our knowledge and expertise.

“We have invested heavily in technology and growing our customer base but this strategic move will allow us to grow the business faster and increase market share.

“I will continue to run the company with my team but look forward to evolving it further in a partnership that all our customers will benefit from.”

Founded in 2004, Staysure Group is a trading name of TICORP Limited, which operates out of Gibraltar – it is licensed and regulated by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission.

The group’s travel insurance service, Staysure, is the largest direct to consumer provider in the UK - it spent on average of £1m per month before the Covid-19 pandemic.