Saga Sells Acromas Underwriter to Ageas: The 20-Year Insurance Partnership Explained

For years, Saga has sold insurance under its familiar brand to Britain’s over-50s. But behind the scenes, it was also carrying the most complicated part of the insurance job: the underwriting risk. Now that “engine room” is being handed to Ageas, in a deal that changes how Saga makes money from insurance, removes a chunk of risk from Saga’s balance sheet, and unexpectedly pulls the company’s Folkestone story back into view.

The deal has two parts. First, a long-term “Affinity Partnership” under which Ageas will run Saga’s motor and home insurance operations. Second, the sale of Saga’s in-house underwriter, Acromas Insurance Company Limited (AICL), to Ageas. Put together, the aim is to make Saga a more “capital-light” business — meaning it needs to tie up less money in the regulated, risk-heavy side of insurance, and can focus more on the brand, marketing and customer relationships. Saga also hopes this will help it reduce debt and make earnings less lumpy.

What Saga sold – and what it kept

The simplest way to understand the deal is to split insurance into two jobs that many customers assume are the same thing.

Broking is the front end: the Saga brand, the advertising, the phone lines, the website, and the customer relationship.

Underwriting is the back end: deciding what price to charge, paying claims when things go wrong, and carrying the financial risk if claims costs rise sharply.

Under the new arrangement, Saga keeps the front end. Ageas takes the back end — plus much of the day-to-day machinery that sits between.

Saga’s broker, Saga Services Limited (SSL), has historically sold motor and home insurance via a “panel” of insurers. Think of a panel as a shortlist: SSL can place customers with one of several insurers, depending on price and appetite for risk. AICL sat on that panel as Saga’s own underwriter, competing with other insurers — but crucially, still leaving Saga exposed to the ups and downs of underwriting. Those swings can be driven by claims inflation, parts and labour costs, major weather events, and pricing mis-steps.

Under the new model, the customer still sees “Saga”. But behind the brand, Ageas takes responsibility for the unglamorous but important operational work: pricing and underwriting, claims handling, customer service, and distribution via price-comparison websites. Saga keeps control of the brand and direct marketing, and earns commission linked to the amount of business written over the life of the partnership.

The money: three streams, not one

There are three separate cash elements, and it helps to keep them distinct: (1) the partnership payment, (2) the AICL sale proceeds, and (3) performance-linked “earn-outs”.

On the Affinity Partnership, Saga disclosed £80 million of cash consideration, paid in two tranches. When the partnership “went live” (meaning it started taking new motor insurance business) in mid-December 2025, Saga said it expected to receive £60 million “that week”, net of a £5 million trade fund paid in advance. The remaining £20 million is due once the wider transfer is finished — as home insurance new business and renewals, and motor renewals, move across and the partnership is fully rolled out. Saga pointed to the second quarter of 2026 for that final instalment.

Then come the earn-outs. The structure allows additional contingent payments of between nil and £30 million in 2026, and the same again in 2032, depending on policy volumes and profitability. Alongside this sits the long-run commission stream: Saga earns a fixed percentage of the gross written premium over the term of the partnership. (Gross written premium is simply the total premiums customers pay in — the “headline” premium pot before costs and claims are taken out.)

Separate again is the sale of AICL, which completed on 1 July 2025 after regulatory approval. The base consideration was £65 million, with adjustments and deductions (including items linked to property value and pension liabilities). Saga said the expected consideration after adjustments was £64.4 million, with 90% paid on completion and 10% due once the completion accounts were finalised. After deducting the transfer of the Enbrook Park property and transaction fees, Saga indicated net proceeds of about £50 million, plus a £10 million pre-completion dividend received from AICL.

In its December 2025 go-live update, Saga then reported final net proceeds from the AICL sale (after costs and deductions) of £56.9 million, plus that £10 million dividend — higher cash inflows than earlier guidance.

There was also a bridging payment tied to the timing of the partnership: a further £2.5 million payable when the Affinity Partnership started, separate from the £80 million. Saga said the mid-December 2025 go-live triggered that final £2.5 million payment, taking total base consideration for AICL to £67.5 million.

Why Saga did it: taking risk off the table

Saga’s reasoning is straightforward. Underwriting is volatile. One bad year — driven by claims inflation, repair-cost shocks, or a run of expensive claims — can swing profits and cash sharply. Moving to a partnership model allows Saga to pursue growth in motor and home insurance without carrying the underwriting balance sheet itself.

For Ageas, the attraction is scale and a defined customer base. When the companies first announced exclusive negotiations in October 2024, they said the motor and home products covered by the deal represented gross written premiums of more than £479 million over the 12 months to 31 July 2024 — a sizeable book of business to operate as a single insurer rather than as part of a wider panel.

Saga’s own figures show why the underwriting shift is material. In the six months to 31 July 2024, Saga reported that AICL underwrote around 62% of SSL’s motor policies and 40% of its home policies, and generated £102 million of gross insurance underlying revenue. That is the underwriting exposure Saga is now stepping away from.

Ownership and influence: De Haan, Babu, Hosking

This pivot is being carried out under an owner-chairman. Sir Roger De Haan — son of Saga’s founder, Sidney De Haan — is the chairman and, by a wide margin, the company’s dominant shareholder. Saga’s annual report recorded him at 26.98% of voting rights in April 2025, and later disclosures put him at 27.53% by late September 2025. In plain terms: he has the voting power to shape the company’s direction. This is not a minor operational tweak; it is a strategic rerouting of Saga’s insurance model with the clear imprint of an owner-chairman.

Alongside him sits a steadily rising stake-builder: Eldose Babu, a Dubai-based investor (who publicly describes himself as a managing director at Euro Emirates Group). In October 2023, Saga disclosed — and Reuters reported — that Babu had taken a 3.2% stake, making him one of Saga’s top three shareholders at the time. By June 2024, Saga’s disclosures showed his holding had risen to 8.02% of voting rights. By the end of June 2025, another filing recorded his voting rights at 9.18%. (Voting rights matter because UK disclosure rules are based on the percentage of votes a shareholder can cast, not just the number of shares.)

The other name often linked to Saga’s larger institutional holdings is Hosking Partners LLP, a long-established UK investment management firm. Ownership tables published by market data providers in early January 2026 put Hosking at around 7% of Saga’s shares — a sizeable institutional block alongside De Haan and Babu, even allowing for differences between data snapshots.

In other words, the share register reinforces the story: a dominant founder-family figure at the top, a steadily accumulating overseas investor just behind, and a City institution with enough weight to matter.

The Folkestone footnote that won’t go away

Saga’s restructuring has a distinctly local echo in Folkestone. The former “Saga building” at Bouverie Square — still known by that name to many residents — appears not to have been sold. A Land Registry title check carried out by the author indicates it remains registered to an Acromas entity.

That detail may sound small next to a 20-year partnership and the sale of an underwriting company, but it underlines something important. “Acromas” is not just a corporate label in a stock-market announcement. It is part of Saga’s legacy structure, still visible on the ground in Kent, long after the group has evolved and reorganised.

What it means for customers – and the real test ahead

For customers, the promise is continuity with a major behind-the-scenes change: the Saga brand stays on the front, while Ageas now runs the motor insurance operation and will extend that operational control into home insurance and renewals as the rollout completes.

The real test will be practical, not theoretical. Do renewals transfer smoothly? Do claims and customer service hold up under a new operator? And can Saga and Ageas keep pricing competitive while still delivering the “trusted brand” experience in a tough insurance market?

For shareholders, the wager is that taking underwriting risk off the balance sheet — and replacing it with upfront cash, potential earn-outs and long-run commission — makes Saga a steadier business and helps it keep grinding down debt. The counter-risk is dependency: once the operational heart is outsourced, competitiveness and customer experience become more tightly linked to a partner’s systems and priorities.

Either way, Saga has made its choice. It has handed its insurance engine room to Ageas, kept the badge on the bonnet, and asked the market to judge it as a capital-light brand and distribution business. And in Folkestone, at least one building still carries that older corporate DNA in the Land Registry.

The Shepway Vox Team

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