Harris rejoins Living Time after MetLife split

Ex-Living Time managing director Dave Harris has returned to the company as a non-executive director after it cut ties with MetLife to relaunch with a new distribution partner.
 
Living Time chief executive Kim Lerche-Thomsen said Harris rejoined after he made a cash injection to the business. Living Time will rebrand with a new distribution partner in time to launch a new fixed-term annuity proposition by April.
 
The decision to split with MetLife came after the US-based life company launched a fixed-term annuity based on the Living Time product, under its own name.

Lerche-Thomsen said: ‘Living Time has become entirely separate from MetLife. So we are planning our next steps. There will be further announcements about the rebrand to come and we are working on the detail of that.
 
‘We had reached the end of how we wanted to develop that relationship [with MetLife] and we had been looking at where the market would go next.’
 
Last January MetLife gave Living Time a £450,000 bailout which gave MetLife exclusive rights to distribute Living Time’s fixed-term annuity.
 
Living Time had previously provided the product for Alico, the underwriter, which was acquired by MetLife in November 2011.
 
The Alico agreement was due to expire in October 2011 and Living Time ended its relationship with MetLife in December following the launch of the MetLife product.
 
A statement in its annual accounts filed on 5 January said: ‘The company completed a license agreement for companies in the MetLife group to manufacture and distribute fixed term annuity products to October 2013. Following the expiry of the existing Alico distribution agreement in October 2011 and the company completed a deed of termination on the 22 December 2011.'
 
The MetLife product added to the Living Time’s fixed term annuity design with an option to switch to an enhanced annuity under certain conditions.
 
MetLife UK managing director Dominic Grinstead said: ‘A year ago we agreed a deal with Kim to distribute the Living Time product. The actual product was always written on Alico paper, Alico provided capital and insurance. We agreed in January 2011 to take on the distribution of that product, now we are at the end of that agreement.’
 
‘It is a similar product. Without doubt the idea came from Living Time, but there is no intellectual property associated with it. MetLife welcomes competition and if Living Time bring more competition to the market then bring it on.’
 
Last January’s agreement between MetLife and Living Time required Living Time to make a 50% reduction in staff costs. A statements in the accounts said the programme has resulted in a substantial reduction in staff numbers and overheads.
 
As at 31 March, partly as a result of the cost-cutting programme it said, Living Time had made a profit of £177,753 up from a loss of £284,265 the previous year.