Radius Insurance Solutions has acquired Leeds-based Milestone Insurance Consultants and Signature Underwriting, specialists in business motor insurance.
The combined companies now have a gross written premium of £50m and offices across the UK from Scotland to Essex.
Milestone, with a strong presence in Leeds since 1979, remains primarily a wheels-based broker focused on taxis and couriers, with Signature as its underwriting brand.
Radius Insurance, a commercial broker with particular strength in motor and fleet insurance, sought out the acquisition to boost its offering for couriers and taxis, and to take its first step into wholesale broking.
As the insurance arm of global business services company Radius Payment Solutions, Radius Insurance says it saw great opportunities for cross-selling insurance to its base of fuel card and telematics customers.
An equally strong appeal was the underwriting capabilities, which it will use to create new solutions that integrate insurance with telematics.
Radius Insurance will continue to face the market through its existing brands which include not only Milestone and Signature but also The Burley Group.
The combined insurance brokerage has offices in Sheffield, Leeds, Glasgow and Essex, whilst the group’s telematics division is a global operation that tracks over half a million vehicles and assets across five continents.
Bill Holmes, CEO of the Radius group, said: “Insurance is a really important long-term market for us and this acquisition gives us more scale and capability to add to the base we have been building organically over the last 12 months.
“Milestone has a strong overlap with the Radius customer base and our expansion into wholesale broking through the acquisition of Signature means Radius can write business on behalf of an underwriter, which will give us greater flexibility to integrate our telematics products with insurance.”
Radius Insurance commercial director, Matt Kirby, added: “As a business services group, Radius can now provide taxi and courier operators not only with insurance but also vehicle tracking and dashcams, vehicle leasing, fuel cards, telecoms and IT solutions and even electric vehicle charging.
“We’re looking forward to designing new types of cover that make use of our telematics capabilities to their full risk-reducing potential.
“These include cloud-based dashcams and driver monitoring that analyses driving style to reduce risky behaviours.
“We don’t just offer standard telematics but also anti-theft trackers, with a recovery services that works nationwide with the police and recovers 95% of stolen vehicles.”