The acquisition brings a further £6.8m of annual premium income (API) and over 1,500 clients to the fast-growing business. Around 60 percent of that income is generated through SME policies, further strengthening Chase Templeton’s position in its core market within the company health insurance sector.

Following a series of acquisitions, including major deals with Atlas Consulting Group and Consilium Employee Benefits, Chase Templeton has now added some £40m API to its books in the last three months and £55m in 2015 as a whole.

Avanti Healthcare was founded in 1996 by chief executive Glen Smith who is exiting the PMI sector in order to concentrate on his Avanti Travel Insurance business. “I and my colleagues have spent nearly 20 years nurturing Avanti Healthcare into a very successful, well-respected and well-known specialist broker. When I decided to focus resource and attention on our growing travel business I sought a buyer who would not only let me realise the value of assets, but inspire confidence that Avanti Healthcare clients would continue to benefit from the best possible advice and service.

“Chase Templeton’s acquisition model is predicated on delivering both those things.”

Jeff Tate, Chase Templeton’s mergers and acquisition director, said the new deal supported one of the company’s key strategic aims. “Avanti brings to us not just a sizeable but a high quality SME client base as indeed did Atlas and Consilium. These and other acquisition, completed and to be concluded, place us firmly on the path towards becoming one of, if not the, key national player in the crucial SME space.” 

He confirmed that Avanti would be Chase Templeton’s last major acquisition this calendar year but added that further significant deals are pipelined for the first quarter of 2016.

Avanti’s SME clients will be serviced via Chase Templeton’s Corporate Centre of Excellence at its headquarters in Darwen, Lancashire. Nearly 1,000 private individual policies will be managed by a specialist team at the Individual Centre of Excellence in Bridgwater, Somerset.