LONDON (Reuters) – Shares in British comparison website Money Supermarket rose 3.5% to a nine-day high on Thursday after Amazon.com said it was planning to shut its UK comparison site Amazon Insurance Store.
“Over the last year we have been evaluating various businesses and programmes, and as a part of that we’ve made the difficult decision to discontinue the Amazon Insurance Store,” Amazon said in a media statement, adding that customers who bought policies would not see any change to their coverage.
Amazon said in Oct 2022 it was launching the site with prices provided by Ageas UK, Co-op and LV=, a unit of Allianz.
Insurers have fretted for years that tech giants will use their strong brand recognition to steal market share in retail insurance. But industry observers point out that insurance is a highly regulated industry that is not easy to enter.
“Many investors have started to see Amazon as less of a threat due to lack of traction,” Jefferies analysts said in a note.
Shares in Future, which owns comparison site GoCompare, were little changed at 0938 GMT.
(Reporting by Carolyn Cohn; Editing by Sinead Cruise and David Goodman)
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