With news this week Fidelity Life has bought Westpac's life insurance business marks the end of the major bank's foray into this part of the market.

Interestingly each bank has sold to a different company; ASB to AIA, ANZ to Cigna, BNZ to Partners (although the deal still has regulatory hurdles to leap) and Westpac to Fidelity.

Asteron is the only one which has missed out on picking up a new business. Whether the company bid for any of them is an unknown.

Who got the best deal? Only time will tell, and a large part of the answer to this is how each bank treats the partnership. Going back years ASB and Sovereign showed it can work.

Each of the purchasers has entered long term distribution deals. As we have consistently seen banks can be a little inconsistent in how they deal with various parts of their business. 

Having expert life companies take over these businesses is arguably good as they have much superior product to bank-manufactured policies.

Likewise, having better products should be good for customers. The only caveat here is that life insurance companies picking up these books of business should be treating customers the same as their existing ones and rolling out improved and upgraded policies. One piece of feedback from advisers is that has not always happened when a life business is sold.

I have always wondered if banks really understood how life insurance works as it is a far different business to anything else they do. I says this as one senior bank executive, who had just taken over running the organisation's life insurance business, confessed to me he did not understand how it worked.

Others who have had senior positions within banks have expressed similar sentiments and talked about some of the internal machinations which went on internally.

The road to integration can be long and complicated. Just look at how long it has taken Cigna to digest the ANZ business OnePath and start to ramp up in the adviser channel.

No doubt Partners Life and Fidelity are going to have their hands full for the next few years resourcing up their businesses and taking over bank distribution. As both these companies have been so focussed on the adviser channel let's hope they don't lose sight it.