AXA have confirmed that their attempt to take over SBJ has been successful, their offer was accepted by 90% of the group’s shareholders.

But although the offer has been accepted unconditionally it is being kept open for additional acceptances until further notice.

The FSA have approved the purchase, so AXA can now take formal control of SBJ.

Chief executive of AXA, Nicolas Moreua says: ‘I am delighted that our acquisition of SBJ Group has been successful. This marks a significant step in our strategy to build a leading advisory services and broking business in the UK.’

He adds: ‘The addition of SBJ strengthens our position in the market and represents an exciting opportunity for SBJ and AXA.

Over the last year, Legal & General have paid out £110m in critical illness claims.

The critical illness claim average was for £60,000, and for a serious condition such as heart attacks, multiple sclerosis or even a terminal illness, the figures reveal almost 90% of claims were successful.

In 2006 the success rate was 83.3%, and this rose 88.2% in 2007.

Critical illness claims not paid out due to non-disclosure fell from 12.1% two years ago to just 7.7% in 2007.

The increase both in successful critical illness claims and the overall amount paid out is a strong sign of Legal & General’s commitment to lessening the number of claims declined, according to Bernie Hickman, the firm’s MD of Protection.

Such an approach should assist customers in believing that insurers will treat them fairly, Hickman has stated.

As well as the critical illness payouts, £179m was paid out in life insurance, at a rate of 96.3%.

Standard Life have reported a 43% profit rise in 2007.

The insurance company secured new business in high margin products while at the same time lowering costs.

Pre-tax profit rose 32%, to £714 million, despite investors withdrawing £249 million from policies that had not reached their maturity dates.

In reporting the results, Standard Life was also able to assure investors that it held no direct exposures to the US mortgage market.

Standard Life’s Chief Executive said: ‘We have beaten all our profitability and efficiency targets for 2007 and achieved record sales, a platform which we will build upon for further growth in years to come. Against an uncertain economic backdrop we have made a good start to 2008 and are working to improve our core profitability.’

According to a leading insurance company, smoking is taken in to account when calculating life insurance premiums.

Sarah Horner, a spokesperson for Norwich Union said: ‘A non-smoker can pay around half the premium as their smoker counterpart.’

Industry experts have suggested the smoking ban that was introduced in July 2007 would encourage more people to quit smoking. However, Miss Horner believes it will take some time before these people will enjoy lower life cover premiums.

‘At Norwich Union we ask that people have been free from using tobacco products for 12 months or more before they are classed as non-smokers.’

‘It is probably too early to tell the full impact of the smoking ban, but the savings for non-smokers can be significant, so it is quite possible that in July we may see people requesting fresh quotes for their policies as non-smokers.’

A leading finance company has conducted research, finding people would rather get rid of non-essential items such as mobile phone contracts, before surrendering their payment protection or Life Cover policies.

Only one in ten would choose to give up their life insurance policy due to a tighter budget and over a third of people cited Life Cover as their most important policy.

According to this research the second most important policy, came in as Income Protection .

And interestingly the first thing people would cut out instead of Life Insurance Cover would be TV subscriptions, followed by mobile phone contracts.