Wellington, June 25 NZPA - Tower Insurance Ltd said a Court of Appeal decision has confirmed its right to renew policies sold through ANZ and National Bank.

The decision upholds Justice Edwin Wylie's High Court decision of March 11.

"We are very pleased with this decision, which confirms the terms of the agency agreements between Tower and ANZ National Bank," said Tower managing director Rob Flannagan.

"Our concern has always been to protect the interests of our customers. We take this opportunity to reassure customers that they will continue to benefit from their existing relationship with Tower Insurance."

From 1993 ANZ National Bank sold bank branded insurance policies written by Tower. In August 2007 the bank entered into a new relationship with Vero Insurance New Zealand as the underlying insurer.

The case was about who got what when the former business partners were no longer commercially aligned. At stake are 196,000 policies held by 110,000 customers, with $70 million of annual premium income.

The Court of Appeal said in effect the bank wanted a clean break on the divorce and argued it was entitled to the Tower insurance "book". Tower wanted to retain the right to renew annually policies if policy holders wanted to do so.

"We think that the appeal point -- that the bank owns the insurance book and that there should be a clean break -- is not made out," the Court of Appeal said.

An analysis of the agreements tended to favour Tower, the judgment said.

Tower said it would be challenging an aspect of the judgment which obliges it to release customers' private and confidential information to ANZ National Bank.

ANZ National Bank today assured customers that the judgment would not impact on their cover in any way.

The ANZ and National Banks and Tower would continue to work together to service these policies for customers and ensure they remained competitive, ANZ National said.