The Alliance Assurance was formed in 1824. It merged with Sun Insurance in 1959 to form

Sun Alliance Insurance Sun Alliance Group plc was a large insurance business with its main offices in the City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside C ...

History

The Alliance was formed by

Sir Moses Montefiore Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, (24 October 1784 – 28 July 1885) was a British financier and banker, activist, philanthropist and Sheriff of London. Born to an Italian Sephardic Jewish family based in London, afte ...

and Nathan Mayer Rothschild (married to sisters) with the intention of creating an insurance company with a larger capital and more influential directors than any before. As founding directors they brought in Samuel Gurney, Francis Baring and

John Irving John Winslow Irving (born John Wallace Blunt Jr.; March 2, 1942) is an American-Canadian novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of ''The World According to ...

. To support the embryonic life business, the directors recruited

Benjamin Gompertz Benjamin Gompertz (5 March 1779 – 14 July 1865) was a British self-educated mathematician and actuary, who became a Fellow of the Royal Society. Gompertz is now best known for his Gompertz law of mortality, a demographic model published in 1 ...

(married to Montefiore's sister), now best known for his law of mortality, and the Alliance was launched in March 1824 with a capital of £5 million. One of the company's first achievements was to break the monopoly in

marine insurance Marine insurance covers the physical loss or damage of ships, cargo, terminals, and any transport by which the property is transferred, acquired, or held between the points of origin and the final destination. Cargo insurance is the sub-branch o ...

held by Lloyds and the two Chartered Corporations,

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and Royal Exchange, via an Act of Parliament. As marine was not in line with the original prospectus, a sister company was formed, Alliance Marine Assurance, with directors in common. This too was launched in 1824, giving Alliance a complete coverage of the main markets – fire and marine insurance and life assurance. Alliance Marine was bought by Alliance Assurance in 1905.Schooling, Sir William (1924), ''Alliance Assurance 1824-1924'', London One month after its launch, the Alliance ambitiously resolved to accept foreign insurance, life and fire from the principal towns of Europe, America, the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

and India. It is not clear how quickly the foreign business started but the Alliance immediately appointed agents around England and Scotland. Acquisitions played an important part in Alliance's growth. Its first domestic acquisition was made in 1847, the fire business division of the Insurance Company of Scotland, and a further dozen more around the country were made by 1890. Almost immediately there were four strategic overseas acquisitions: the Royal Canadian Fire Office of Montreal; the Union Fire Insurance of San Francisco; the Tasmanian Fire Insurance; and the Union Fire & Marine Insurance of New Zealand. There were further acquisitions before and after

WWI World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, including the Imperial Fire and Life in 1902, Westminster Fire in 1906 and the National and Boiler & General in 1923. This was the last year covered by the Schooling history and it was not known what further acquisitions were made. Organic growth was not neglected and the Alliance started the major new line of accident insurance in 1907 following the

Workmen's Compensation Act 1906 The Workmen's Compensation Act 1906 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which deals with the right of working people for compensation for personal injury. The Act expanded the scheme created by the Workmen's Compensation Act 1897. ...

. In 1959, Alliance Assurance merged with Sun Insurance to form Sun Alliance; this in turn merged with the

Royal Insurance Royal Insurance Holdings plc was a large insurance business originating in Liverpool but based in London from the early 20th century. It merged with Sun Alliance in 1996 to form the Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Group. History Formation and e ...

to produce the Royal Sun Alliance, later

RSA Insurance Group RSA Insurance Group Limited ( trading as RSA, formerly RSA Insurance Group plc and Royal and Sun Alliance) is a British multinational general insurance company headquartered in London, England. RSA has major operations in the United Kingdom, Ire ...

References

{{Reflist Insurance companies of the United Kingdom