Launch of e-Commerce Initiative for Home Movers
CGU PLC
10 May 2000
CGU LAUNCHES MAJOR E-COMMERCE INITIATIVE FOR
HOME MOVERS
* new brand introduced, asserta home
* largest on line homes database - 180,000 properties from over 3,000 estate
agency branches around the UK at launch or some 50% of the market
* immediate updates of available property and most personalised service
in marketplace
CGU announces the launch today of a major new home-moving portal - asserta
home (www.assertahome.com) - to reduce the hassles of homebuying. The new
initiative provides access to the largest on line homes database with
properties from over 3,000 estate agency branches throughout the UK, totaling
some 180,000 homes for sale, representing in the region of 50% of the market.
The development of asserta home, which will be the first in the UK to offer a
personalised and comprehensive on-line home moving service, follows extensive
research to determine customer's needs during the house buying process. Users
can receive immediate updates of newly available homes via e mail or mobile
phone text messaging, search and rank properties on 16 different criteria,
access photographs on-line, arrange mortgage finance and organise the move
itself over the net 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.
asserta home aims to build its estate agency links further over the coming
months to continuously grow the number and range of properties on line,
leveraging the estate agency market experience of 'Your Move', CGU's estate
agency chain. Later this year, asserta home will be introducing complementary
services such as an insurance supermarket and a database of home specialists
and designers.
The UK home moving market generates fees and associated expenditure estimated
at over £9 billion per annum, and is an important entry point to the mortgage
and insurance market. asserta home aims to build its revenues from
commissions from mortgages, life protection products and from general
insurance, in addition to advertising revenues and other transactional fees.
The business is expected to be profitable in its third year.
The new brand will benefit from the expertise and financial strength of CGU.
CGU has committed an estimated £40m over 3 years to develop asserta home and
provide the most user-friendly and robust system available. A major press and
TV advertising campaign around the country will support the launch with TV
advertising starting on 15 May.
It is anticipated that the equity in asserta home will be owned as follows:
30% partner Estate Agents with the remainder 56% with CGU and 14% for asserta
home management and staff.
asserta home forms part of a wider e-commerce wealth management project
underway at CGNU, the UK's largest insurer to be created from the merger of
CGU and Norwich Union. Both companies had parallel wealth management projects
and the best of each are being selected and will be announced in August 2000,
at the time of the interim results. asserta home is the first strand of the
wealth management strategy.
Philip Twyman, Group Executive Director, for CGU commented: 'The attraction
of asserta home is its ability to reduce the stress of the home moving
process, using e-commerce to find better solutions for customers. asserta
home, which we believe will become the premiere home moving portal in the UK,
provides a valuable access point to a large scale market. The dynamics of
e-businesses are still embryonic, but the asserta home model will attract
significant new customers to which we can market financial services products.'
Ashok Gupta, CEO of asserta home said: 'asserta home is about harnessing new
technology to give customers the right information and knowledge to help them
with the total home-buying process. The business is entirely customer centric
focusing on areas where we can add value through offering the most
personalised service in the marketplace.'
asserta home provides:
* Search for properties by map, postcode and specific location
* Advanced search by price, features, number of bedrooms and type of property
* On-line mortgage supermarket with ability to arrange a mortgage on-line from
a wide choice of lenders
* Local area information including healthcare and education
* Daily updates on properties coming onto market in area e-mailed direct to
the client or through a mobile phone messaging service
* Direct link into estate agents own websites
* Change of address facility for a range of service providers.
* Utility supermarket allowing energy and water cost comparison
For further information, please contact:
Media
Ashok Gupta - asserta home 020 7661 9593
Laura Hastings - Lanson Communications 020 7294 3614
Analysts/Investors
Steve Riley - CGU plc 020 7662 8115
Notes to Editors
About CGU
CGU's proposed merger with Norwich Union was approved by shareholders at the
end of March. The formal merger to become CGNU is expected to take place
around the end of May 2000.
The merged Group will have total worldwide premium income and retail
investment sales of £26 billion and will be Europe's fifth largest insurer.
CGNU will have more than £200 billion of assets under management and will be
the second largest asset manager in the UK.
CGU plc Group website: www.cgugroup.com/group
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