New Zealand insurer Tower has sold most of its life insurance business to Fidelity Life for $NZ189 million ($156.41 million).

The sale is part of the company’s plan to narrow its corporate focus following a strategic review last year.

Tower Investments was offloaded to Fisher Funds in March for $NZ79 million ($65.38 million) and the health insurance business went to Australia’s Nib Holdings last year for $NZ102 million ($84.41 million).

Tower will now focus on delivering “high-quality general insurance products”, Group MD Rob Flannagan says.

“We determined that now was a good time to maximise value to Tower shareholders by selling this part of the life business. This concludes our strategic review.”

The deal means Fidelity Life is now New Zealand’s third-largest life insurer by inforce market share, according to Chairman Ian Braddock.

“It is important that we have a strong New Zealand-owned company in our financial services industry,” he said.

“This will give us the scale to expand further into the market.”