Insurer Aviva has made savings of £91m from its acquisition of rival provider Friends Life and said the merger was "everything we expected it to be", in its third quarter results.
The group, which forms the largest life insurer in the UK since its merger in April, increased its previous synergy savings by £28m in the last quarter against its final target of £225m by 2017.
Aviva's results would not give a breakdown of the cost savings but the firm had warned in January it could make 1,500 job cuts.
New business in its UK Life division grew 36% year on year in the third quarter from £297m to £404m and would have been up 13% excluding Friends Life (£335m).
The firm said it benefited from offering the full suite of pensions freedom.
Friends Life figures are included in the results from 10 April this year, when the acquisition was completed.
Aviva's platform saw £2.2bn of net inflows in the nine months to 30 September, taking assets under management to £7.3bn.
The investment arm of Aviva saw £4bn in gross sales in the third quarter of the year, but said gross redemptions remained "too high" at £4.5bn.
The group will transfer £23bn of Friends Life assets from AXA Investment Managers in November.
Mark Wilson, group chief executive officer, said: "The acquisition of Friends Life is everything we expected it to be. We have now achieved £91m of savings against our target of £225m.
"At the same time our UK Life business continues to grow and our customers are responding positively to the full range of pensions freedoms we offer.
"Our near term priorities are clear; we are focused on delivering the benefits from the Friends Life integration and the transition to Solvency II. Beyond that, there exists significant upside from better capital allocation and a more effective digital customer proposition.
"The third quarter results are further evidence of our progress since we started our turnaround. We remain focused on showing improvement in our key metrics year after year."
Further reading
Aviva and Friends Life merger probed by FCA - report
Aviva Life new business leaps 14% but Friends Life fails to perform
