Briefing: Are large retailers aiming to disrupt the UK insurance market?

During August 2026, it was revealed that two major UK retailers would enter the UK insurance market.

First, international furniture and home improvement giant Ikea announced that it would be launching home insurance, with contents, buildings, as well as combined contents and buildings propositions becoming available to customers.

Then, well-known pet supplies brand Pets at Home announced that it had launched a pet proposition with three lifetime cover options – core, plus and max – allowing customers to select the annual vet fee limit that best suits their pet.

With both insurance market entrances representing huge new moves for the retailers, it is to be expected that they both sought out partnerships with insurance experts.

For example, Pets at Home’s new proposition is underwritten by Munich Re-owned Great Lakes Insurance UK, while Ikea has teamed up with insurtech Urban Jungle to launch its proposition.

The latter deal will see Urban Jungle arrange and administer insurance for customers working with an underwriter.

Specialist expertise

While Ikea and Pets at Home do not have their own teams to underwrite policies in-house, they will remain heavily involved in the underwriting and wider insurance process by leveraging their large amounts of specialist retail experience.

For example, Matt Poll, managing director for Pets at Home’s new insurance proposition, told Insurance Times that the firm has the equivalent of over “15 million exposure years” in vet treatment data, in addition to the data collected from pet owners using the Pets at Home app.

In turn, the firm wants to create an integrated pet-care “ecosystem” encompassing its insurance, veterinary and retail services.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Williams, chief executive at Urban Jungle, noted that Ikea could use its retail experience to support the claims process.

“Claims is an obvious place for us to be looking to build that link between the Ikea retail experience and the insurance side,” he said.

Of course, insurers have much more insurance-specific data and experience from developing insurance propositions for different personal lines markets, so can do things themselves without partnering with a retailer.

However, it is essential to note that retailers have lived and breathed the markets they are creating propositions for, while also providing sought-after brand exposure, differentiation and access to interested customers.

Retailers will know their audiences inside and out and have gathered essential data available through their own distribution chains, which could provide them with advantages when creating insurance products, for example.

Poll said: “The one thing that Pets at Home does well is it understands pets and their owners, which I’d argue some insurers don’t. That’s not a criticism of insurers – it’s just because they are insurers.

“We’ve got access to data sources that most mainstream insurers would dream of having and we can reward conscientious pet owners accordingly.”

Retailers more popular?

This leads to a key question – are trusted, recognisable retailers becoming a more appealing way for customers to buy their insurance?

According to GlobalData, the shift toward a market where embedding insurance products alongside other products poses an immediate threat to incumbent insurers stuck using legacy channels.

The firm’s 2025 UK Insurance Consumer Survey also highlighted that 30% of consumers said that they would be willing to buy a home insurance policy from Ikea if it were to offer it.

Crucially, among all alternative providers, Ikea recorded the highest proportion of respondents stating they would be willing to buy a home insurance policy from the brand.

The survey was carried out via an online panel of consumers aged over 18, with 4,010 respondents.

Williams noted that “there is also a big heritage in the UK of people buying insurance through big consumer brands and big retailers”.

“All the supermarkets have offerings,” he said.

“It’s not unusual for a British consumer to buy insurance from a big consumer brand like Ikea. That well-established notion was a part of the logic for [Ikea] coming to the UK first.”

In turn, retailers entering insurance seems to be a significant challenge to traditional, un-embedded distribution channels – and is causing disruption in the market.

As a result, those insurers that do not take advantage of embedded partnerships as a key part of their strategy could struggle to compete into the future. It’s becoming clear that retailers are changing the game.