ONE spins off underwriting unit

Travel claims and assistance firm ONE Group has demerged its underwriting business, ONE Underwriting, into a separate entity.

The new company, the Ancile Insurance Group, has been created to house ONE's consumer direct brands including insurewithease.com and goodtogoinsurance.com.

Graham Linney, the former managing director of travel insurance broker Columbus Travel, wil run the new firm. He joined One from Columbus at the end of last year as managing director of the direct business.

“ONE has built a strong reputation for travel claims and assistance management services for a wide range of insurance companies," said ONE chairman Paul Byrne in a statement. "This demerging enables ONE to focus on the development of core services delivered by ONE Claims and ONE Assist. Hence we have completely separated the two operations, each of which has complete autonomy."

“It is tremendously exciting to be heading the newly created Ancile Group,” added Linney. “I will be building on the success of the insurewithease.com and goodtogoinsurance.com brands by harnessing new market opportunities, working closely with a driven and experienced team. In particularly I aim to focus on increasing our volume and margin, taking the business to the next level of success.”