Finding the most preferred alliance structure between banks and insurance companies

In this paper we have studied alternative alliances between banks and insurance companies. First we defined six different possible structure models for such alliances, and nine criteria used to evaluate the models. The models and the criteria were introduced together with bank and insurance experts. The experts are representatives of the top management of Finnish banks and insurance companies. Searching for the most preferred alliance model is a multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) problem. To solve the problem, we used an expert panel and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Based on the evaluations of the panel, the alternatives Financial Conglomerate and Cross-Selling Agreement, no Overlapping Service Channels are most preferred. Which one is chosen, depends on how risk is emphasized.