MetLife has expanded its retail life insurance business with a deal to supply the life component in Yellow Brick Road’s new home loan protection products.

Yellow Brick Road Loan Protect and Vow Loan Protect will be available next month, followed by a full suite of white-label income protection and life insurance products sold through the Yellow Brick Road Group.

Yellow Brick Road CEO Matt Lawler says partnering with MetLife will deliver a “significant depth and breadth to the product range available to Yellow Brick Road customers”.

“With our brand backed by one the world’s largest insurers, we will give our customers the ability to tap into a new suite of insurance products designed for their needs,” he said.

“We have built strong branch and broker channels and, with our scale, the timing is right to accelerate distribution of a white-labelled insurance product.

“This partnership will allow Yellow Brick Road and MetLife to create customised products that meet the needs of our mortgage clients and are competitively priced.”

The new products will be sold through 255 Yellow Brick Road licensees and 850 Vow Financial independent brokers.

MetLife CEO Deanne Stewart says the deal is a good way to expand retail distribution.

“The [mortgage] broker market has been under-serviced for some time,” she said.

“This partnership is a means for MetLife to address that service gap with a quality retail insurance offering.”

Ms Stewart says the deal reflects changes to life insurance distribution.

“For our part, we were attracted not only to Yellow Brick Road’s growing network but also its independence and ethos of challenging and disrupting business.”