It has been a horrible year for both banks and insurers. What, then, of the idea of bancassurance, when banks and insurers combine? Lured by synergies, economies of scale and higher revenues from cross-selling banking products to insurance customers, and vice versa, many banks and insurers have joined forces over the past five years, notably in Europe. In 1997 Credit Suisse paid $8.8 billion for Winterthur, Switzerland's second-largest insurer (bringing woes, admittedly, since). In 2000 ING of the Netherlands added ReliaStar, an American life insurer, along with the financial-services division of Aetna, an American health insurer, to its European banking, insurance and asset-management stables. Last year Allianz, Germany's insurance giant, bought Dresdner Bank, Germany's second-largest.
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