The Development of Bancassurance in Europe

The first use of the term

bancassurance

was in France, where cooperation between banks and insurance companies started earlier than in other European countries. This word was originally coined to indicate the simple distribution of insurance products by bank branches, while now it is used to describe all kinds of relationships between the banking and the insurance industries. Along with the development of the phenomenon, bancassurance definitions are becoming more and more general, as in the following examples:

Bancassurance is basically the provision of and selling of banking and insurance products by the same organisation under the same roof. (Elkington, 1993, p. 2)

Bancassurance can be described as a strategy adopted by banks or insurance companies aiming to operate the financial market in a more or less integrated manner. (Swiss RE, 1992, p.4)