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Liverpool Victoria, trading since May 2007 as LV=, is one of the United Kingdom's largest insurance companies. It offers a range of insurance and retirement products.


History


The First Hundred Years

The first known meeting of the Society was in March 1843 but there is no record of the members of the committee or its incorporation or rules. The anniversary history described it as starting without any subscribed capital, or influence and little experience. All that is known is that its President was a William Fenton, who also became treasurer and is believed to be the driving force behind the Society’s early growth. However, its objectives were clearly set out in its first report in September 1843. “The great object of this Society is to afford the poorer classes of the community the means of providing for themselves and their children a decent interment at the trilling expense of a halfpenny, a penny or three pence, according to the age of the member” Anon, Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society Centenary Celebration 1843-1943, Liverpool, 1945 For the remainder of the nineteenth century the Society was associated with what simple life assurance or the ‘penny policy’. Door-to-door agents collected these penny premiums, allowing people to provide for the costs of a decent funeral. Liverpool Victoria website https://www.lv.com/about-us/our-story After eighteen months the Society had provided for over 200 funerals. Within the space of three or four years, the Society had collectors operating outside
Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
, in towns such as
Chester Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Loca ...
and
Runcorn Runcorn is an industrial town and cargo port in the Borough of Halton in Cheshire, England. Its population in 2011 was 61,789. The town is in the southeast of the Liverpool City Region, with Liverpool to the northwest across the River Mersey. ...
. By the 1860s, Liverpool Victoria was operating across England from Newcastle to
Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymouth ...
with collectors also in
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
,
Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
and
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
. An increasing amount of business was being transacted in
London London is the capital and 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 down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
and in 1884 the Chief Office was moved there – an early example of a commercial head office moving out of Liverpool. A wider range of product was being offered to customers and in 1906, to recognise this, the Society proposed to convert to a limited liability company. This was fiercely contested through the courts and it was not until 1907 that arbitrators ruled that a subsidiary could be formed “for the transaction of business outside the Society’s scope”. The development of new business lines was a continuing feature of the Society’s expansion. A particularly important introduction followed the
National Insurance Act 1911 The National Insurance Act 1911 created National Insurance, originally a system of health insurance for industrial workers in Great Britain based on contributions from employers, the government, and the workers themselves. It was one of the foun ...
that created a contributions-based system of health insurance. Friendly societies which had their own schemes were given a major role in administering health insurance and in 1912 the Liverpool Victoria established its own approved National Insurance Society. Another example was that by the 1930s, the Society was offering complete home insurance policies through its link with the Commercial Insurance Company.


Recent Facts

In May 2013, LV= issued
subordinated bond In finance, subordinated debt (also known as subordinated loan, subordinated bond, subordinated debenture or junior debt) is debt which ranks after other debts if a company falls into liquidation or bankruptcy. Such debt is referred to as 'subordi ...
s priced at £350 million. This debt, which carries interest at 6.5%, is due for repayment in 2043, although LV= has the option to repay it from 2023. The debt counts as lower tier 2 capital and is expected to be eligible as capital under the '' Solvency 2'' capital regime which will apply to all EU insurance companies from 1 January 2016. Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society Limited was deregistered as a friendly society and registered as Liverpool Victoria Financial Services Ltd. on 2 January 2020 with the company focusing on life insurance, pensions and investments. Allianz is now the sole shareholder of Liverpool Victoria General Insurance.


Acquisitions

Although most of the growth in the Society was organic, there were almost twenty transfers of business from other societies. • Liverpool Crown & Anchor Friendly Society (1885) • Liverpool Protective Assurance & Burial Society (1903) • New Era (1904) • General Friendly Collecting Society (formerly Leeds and General Friendly Society) (includes the Hulme Burial Society) (1908) • Most Friendly Burial Collecting Society (1933) • City Mutual (Guernsey) Collecting Society (1935) • City Mutual (Jersey) Collecting Society (1935) • Hibernian Mutual Assurance Collecting Society (1944) • General Federation of Trade Unions Friendly & Collecting Society (GFTU) (1952) • Independent Burial Society (1953) • Withington Friendly Burial Collecting Society (1954) • Ardwick Union Burial Society (1957) • Keighley Samaritan Brief (1963) • Druids Burial Society (1965) • Permanent Insurance Company Limited (2001) • Royal National Pension Fund for Nurses (RNPFN, 2001) • UIA Insurance Limited (life business only) (2005) • Tomorrow (2007) • Teachers Provident Society (2016)


Business activities

LV= offers services directly to consumers, as well as through IFAs and
insurance broker An insurance broker is an intermediary who sells, solicits, or negotiates insurance on behalf of a client for compensation. An insurance broker is distinct from an insurance agent in that a broker typically acts on behalf of a client by negoti ...
s, and through strategic partnerships with organisations such as
ASDA Asda Stores Ltd. () (often styled as ASDA) is a British supermarket chain. It is headquartered in Leeds, England. The company was founded in 1949 when the Asquith family merged their retail business with the Associated Dairies company of York ...
,
Nationwide Building Society Nationwide Building Society is a British mutual financial institution, the seventh largest cooperative financial institution and the largest building society in the world with over 16 million members. Its headquarters are in Swindon, England. ...
and some
trades unions A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...
. At the start of 2015 LV= was ranked in a survey called the UK Institute of Customer Service Satisfaction Index (UKCSI) as the best insurance business in the UK for customer satisfaction and seventh best across all UK businesses, with only one other insurer in the Top 50.


General insurance

General insurance General insurance or non-life insurance policy, including automobile and homeowners policies, provide payments depending on the loss from a particular financial event. General insurance is typically defined as any insurance that is not determine ...
products covering
motor An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power g ...
,
home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. H ...
,
pet A pet, or companion animal, is an animal kept primarily for a person's company or entertainment rather than as a working animal, livestock, or a laboratory animal. Popular pets are often considered to have attractive appearances, intelligence, ...
,
travel Travel is the movement of people between distant geographical locations. Travel can be done by foot, bicycle, automobile, train, boat, bus, airplane, ship or other means, with or without luggage, and can be one way or round trip. Travel c ...
and
small business Small businesses are types of corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships which have fewer employees and/or less annual revenue than a regular-sized business or corporation. Businesses are defined as "small" in terms of being able to ap ...
insurance are provided by Liverpool Victoria Insurance Company Limited. Some products are sold both directly to the public over the telephone and internet and, under the ABC Insurance and Highway brands, through insurance brokers. This latter distribution channel (known collectively as LV= Broker) was boosted in October 2008 by the £150 million acquisition of Highway Insurance Group PLC, following a successful
public offering A public offering is the offering of securities of a company or a similar corporation to the public. Generally, the securities are to be listed on a stock exchange. In most jurisdictions, a public offering requires the issuing company to publish a ...
for its
shares In financial markets, a share is a unit of equity ownership in the capital stock of a corporation, and can refer to units of mutual funds, limited partnerships, and real estate investment trusts. Share capital refers to all of the shares of an ...
. Since 2007 the general insurance division has also owned Britannia Rescue, the UK's fourth largest road rescue business, which in 2009 won a contract to be the exclusive provider of road rescue services to the customers of
Asda Asda Stores Ltd. () (often styled as ASDA) is a British supermarket chain. It is headquartered in Leeds, England. The company was founded in 1949 when the Asquith family merged their retail business with the Associated Dairies company of York ...
. General insurance products are also sold through
white label A white label record is a vinyl record with white labels attached. There are several variations each with a different purpose. Variations include test pressings, white label promos, and plain white labels. Test pressings Test pressings, usua ...
partnership arrangements including
Nationwide Building Society Nationwide Building Society is a British mutual financial institution, the seventh largest cooperative financial institution and the largest building society in the world with over 16 million members. Its headquarters are in Swindon, England. ...
, and CSMA Club, the latter arrangement dating back to 1923. The general insurance business of LV= has its origins in the acquisition in 1996 of Frizzell, a business founded in 1923, which acted as a broker of motor and household insurance policies. A new subsidiary company, Liverpool Victoria Insurance Company Limited, was established in 1996 in order to underwrite the Frizzell business, which was augmented in 1997 by the acquisition of the motor and household policies of Landmark Insurance. In 2006 it acquired ABC Insurance, a start-up insurance company established by John O'Roarke, formerly the managing director of
Churchill Insurance Churchill Insurance is a British insurance company based in Bromley, London. Founded in 1989, as one of the country's first direct to customer car insurance companies, the company has expanded to offer a range of general insurance products. Sin ...
and a senior executive of
Direct Line Direct Line is an insurance company based in Bromley, England. Founded in 1985, as the country's first direct car insurance company, it has since expanded to offer a range of general insurance products. Its policies are underwritten by the regul ...
, together with other former Direct Line executives, with a view to delivering substantial growth and an increase in public profile to a business that was then in steady decline, reliant on direct mail for marketing and with unsophisticated
underwriting Underwriting (UW) services are provided by some large financial institutions, such as banks, insurance companies and investment houses, whereby they guarantee payment in case of damage or financial loss and accept the financial risk for liabilit ...
. This was achieved. By the end of 2012 the £386 million of premium income and 1.1 million customers of 2006 had increased to £1.5 billion of premium income and over 4 million customers with profits of £117 million. The business had become the UK's third-biggest motor insurer with an 11% market share. The transformation of the business was acknowledged by receiving the accolade of ''General Insurer of the Year'' at the 2012 British Insurance awards. In 2017, LV= concluded a deal with
Allianz Allianz ( , ) is a German multinational financial services company headquartered in Munich, Germany. Its core businesses are insurance and asset management. The company is one of the world's largest insurers and financial services groups. The ...
to sell its general insurance division for a deal worth up to £1bn. This would mean the commercial lines of the insurer would go to Allianz, with the latter's personal lines going in the opposite direction, and creating a joint venture between the firms. In 2019, Allianz purchased the remaining 51% of the general insurance division in a simultaneous purchase of
Legal & General Legal & General Group plc, commonly known as Legal & General, is a British multinational financial services and asset management company headquartered in London, England. Its products and services include investment management, lifetime mortg ...
's General Insurance division for £800m which concluded with both of the respective firms becoming part of Allianz on 1 January 2020 with the general insurance division of L&G being renamed officially as Fairmead Insurance but keeping the L&G branding.


Life assurance

Life assurance Life insurance (or life assurance, especially in the Commonwealth of Nations) is a contract between an insurance policy holder and an insurer or assurer, where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money upon the death ...
products covering
with-profits A with-profits policy ( Commonwealth) or participating policy (U.S.) is an insurance contract that participates in the profits of a life insurance company. The company is often a mutual life insurance company, or had been one when it began its ...
assurance,
term assurance Term life insurance or term assurance is life insurance that provides coverage at a fixed rate of payments for a limited period of time, the relevant term. After that period expires, coverage at the previous rate of premiums is no longer guaran ...
,
whole life insurance Whole life insurance, or whole of life assurance (in the Commonwealth of Nations), sometimes called "straight life" or "ordinary life", is a life insurance policy which is guaranteed to remain in force for the insured's entire lifetime, provided ...
,
annuities In investment, an annuity is a series of payments made at equal intervals.Kellison, Stephen G. (1970). ''The Theory of Interest''. Homewood, Illinois: Richard D. Irwin, Inc. p. 45 Examples of annuities are regular deposits to a savings account, m ...
and equity release mortgages are provided by Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society Limited and Liverpool Victoria Life Company Limited. Since January 2008 the product range has been augmented by flexible retirement pensions and
equity release Equity release is a means of retaining use of a house or other asset which has capital value, while also obtaining a lump sum or a steady stream of income, using the value of the asset. Pricing of no negative equity guarantee The UK Prudent ...
schemes through the acquisition from
Swiss Re Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd,
Swiss Re. Retrieved on 18 January 2011. "Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd ("Swiss Re") ...
of the former G E Life businesses in the United Kingdom. In 1999 Liverpool Victoria was heavily criticised in a report by the
Personal Investment Authority Personal may refer to: Aspects of persons' respective individualities * Privacy * Personality * Personal, personal advertisement, variety of classified advertisement used to find romance or friendship Companies * Personal, Inc., a Washington, ...
for "serious and widespread compliance failings" including hiring inept staff who offered customers poor financial advice. The society was fined £900,000, the largest fine ever handed out by the PIA at the time. Liverpool Victoria Life Company Limited, then known as Permanent Insurance, was purchased from Equitable Life for £150 million in 2001. It was announced in December 2014 that Liverpool Victoria would be acquiring the business of Teachers Assurance, subject to the approval of the latter's members. Liverpool Victoria confirmed that its mulling all its options including the sale of its life and pensions business with Fenchurch Advisory Partners advising on its options and in October 2020 entered exclusive negotiations with
Bain Capital Bain Capital is an American private investment firm based in Boston. It specializes in private equity, venture capital, credit, public equity, impact investing, life sciences, and real estate. Bain Capital invests across a range of industry se ...
. In December 2021, members of Liverpool Victoria rejected selling the company to Bain Capital for a reported £530m.


Investments

In August 2011 it was announced that the
fund management Asset management is a systematic approach to the governance and realization of value from the things that a group or entity is responsible for, over their whole life cycles. It may apply both to tangible assets (physical objects such as buildings ...
services and
OEIC An open-ended investment company (abbreviated to OEIC, pron. ) or investment company with variable capital (abbreviated to ICVC) is a type of open-ended collective investment formed as a corporation under the Open-Ended Investment Company Regulati ...
S provided by Liverpool Victoria Asset Management Limited and Liverpool Victoria Portfolio Managers Limited would be transferred to Threadneedle Asset Management as LV= had failed to achieve sufficient scale, despite having some £8 billion of funds under management.


Banking

Liverpool Victoria Banking Services Limited, which came into the LV= group as part of the 1996 Frizzell acquisition, provided
loan In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that d ...
s and
credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...
s until 2007 when the business was closed following heavy losses. In 2008 the company was fined £840,000 by the FSA in connection with its past sale of
payment protection insurance Payment protection insurance (PPI), also known as credit insurance, credit protection insurance, or loan repayment insurance, is an insurance product that enables consumers to ensure repayment of credit if the borrower dies, becomes ill or disabl ...
alongside loans.


Offices

Victoria House in
Bloomsbury Square Bloomsbury Square is a garden square in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden, London. Developed in the late 17th century, it was initially known as Southampton Square and was one of the earliest London squares. By the early 19th century, Be ...
, London, was built for Liverpool Victoria in the 1920s and remained its head office until the company relocated to Bournemouth in 1996.


Brand and image

Following the appointment of Mike Rogers as the new Chief Executive in 2006, LV= has undergone significant change in an effort to modernise its image and to re-invent itself in the face of the gradual industry-wide decline in with-profits assurance. On 25 July 2016 Richard Rowney replaced Mike Rogers as CEO.


LV= and LV.com

In early 2007 the name Liverpool Victoria was dropped (although it remains the formal name of most legal entities within the group) in favour of LV=. A distinctive green heart icon stylized from the letter 'V' has also become a symbol of the group in its advertising, playing on the visual similarity of LV= to the word ''love''. Shortly after the rebranding, LV= acquired the
Internet domain name A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...
LV.com, which the French luxury goods manufacturer
Louis Vuitton Louis Vuitton Malletier, commonly known as Louis Vuitton (, ), is a French high-end Luxury goods, luxury fashion house and company founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton (designer), Louis Vuitton. The label's LV monogram appears on most of its produc ...
had, in November 2006, failed to acquire from Manifest Information Services (aka Manifest Hostmaster and Manifest.com) through a
WIPO The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO; french: link=no, Organisation mondiale de la propriété intellectuelle (OMPI)) is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishin ...
law suit - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...
.


Sponsorship

In recent years the society has promoted itself through sponsorship of sport. As Liverpool Victoria, it sponsored the UK Snooker Championship from 1997–2000. It has sponsored the
cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...
since 2002, initially (2002–2005) as Frizzell (the name of an old established insurance business acquired in 1996), in 2006 as Liverpool Victoria and since 2007 as LV=. In
rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...
, LV= signed a three-year sponsorship deal with Premiership club Harlequins in October 2008, and in October 2009 signed a two-year deal to become title sponsor of the
Anglo-Welsh Cup The Anglo-Welsh Cup (), was a cross-border rugby union knock-out cup competition that featured the 12 Premiership Rugby clubs and the four Welsh regions. It was a created as a replacement for the RFU Knockout Cup, which featured only English clubs ...
.


Television

In 2007, for the first time in the society's history,
television advertising A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...
was employed for car insurance and life assurance, the former featuring the song "
Have Love, Will Travel "Have Love, Will Travel" is a 1959 song written and recorded by Richard Berry. While the song may have been recorded before the end of 1959, the correct release date appears to be January, 1960. The title is based on a popular television/radi ...
", and the latter featuring
Cilla Black Priscilla Maria Veronica White (27 May 1943 – 1 August 2015), better known as Cilla Black, was an English singer, actress and television presenter. Championed by her friends the Beatles, Black began her career as a singer in 1963. Her ...
.LV= 50 Plus advertisement
Youtube.com


See also

*''
Taylor Fashions v Liverpool Victoria Trustees ''Taylor Fashions Ltd and Old & Campbell Ltd v Liverpool Victoria Trustees Co Ltd'' 979is a leading case in English land law on proprietary estoppel. Due to a common mistake and no element of enticement to believe that mistake, estoppel was not ...
'' (1979), a leading case on
proprietary estoppel Proprietary estoppel is a legal claim, especially connected to English land law, which may arise in relation to rights to use the property of the owner, and may even be effective in connection with disputed transfers of ownership. Proprietary est ...


References

{{reflist, 30em


External links


LV= website

Picture of Victoria House, London

Catalogue of the Liverpool Victoria Workers' Union archives
held at the
Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick The Modern Records Centre (MRC) is the specialist archive service of the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, located adjacent to the Central Campus Library. It was established in October 1973 and holds the world's largest archive collecti ...
Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society Liverpool Victoria, trading since May 2007 as LV=, is one of the United Kingdom's largest insurance companies. It offers a range of insurance and retirement products. History The First Hundred Years The first known meeting of the Society was ...
Insurance companies of the United Kingdom Companies based in Bournemouth 1843 establishments in the United Kingdom