Barclays are primed to sell up shop and depart from the life insurance industry by selling its business to Swiss Re for £753 million.

Swiss Re will now take on all life insurance deals, pensions’ policies and annuity contracts currently on hold at Barclays amounting to a figure close to £6.8 billion in invested assets.

Although closed to additional business since the beginning of the century Barclays Life still generate a large income due to its 760,000 live policies.

Chris Lucas, group finance director at Barclays, commented: "Barclays Life is an attractive, high quality business which is not core to Barclays. 

"We are confident that Swiss Re, with its expertise in this area, will offer policyholders continuity of service and support." He added.

In separate news, research conducted by Abbey has revealed that a large percentage of British adults prefer to obtain all of their insurance from one provider rather than being forced to shop around.

18% have shown to require the least fuss possible when taking insurance, flying in the face of the perceived wisdom that many shop around desperate to acquire the best deal.

Steve Shore, Abbey director of banking, said: "Many of us now prefer to keep things simple and use one provider that they can trust to provide good value across the board."