Liverpool Victoria

The first known meeting of the Liverpool Victoria Friendly 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” [1] 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. [2] After eighteen months the Society had provided for over 200 funerals. [1]

Within the space of three or four years, the Society had collectors operating outside Liverpool, in towns such as Chester and Runcorn. By the 1860s, Liverpool Victoria was operating across England from Newcastle to Plymouth with collectors also in Scotland, Wales and Ireland. An increasing amount of business was being transacted in London 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”. [1]

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 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. [1]

In May 2013, LV= issued subordinated bonds 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.[3]

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.[4][5] Allianz is now the sole shareholder of Liverpool Victoria General Insurance.[6]

General insurance products covering motor, home, pet, travel and small business 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,[9] following a successful public offering for its shares.[10][11] 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.[12] General insurance products are also sold through white label partnership arrangements including Nationwide Building Society,[13][14] and CSMA Club, the latter arrangement dating back to 1923.[15]

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.[16] 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.[17] In 2006 it acquired ABC Insurance, a start-up insurance company established by John O'Roarke, formerly the managing director of Churchill Insurance and a senior executive of Direct Line, 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.[18][19] 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.[20] The transformation of the business was acknowledged by receiving the accolade of General Insurer of the Year at the 2012 British Insurance awards.[21]

In 2017, LV= concluded a deal with Allianz 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.[22]

In 2019, Allianz purchased the remaining 51% of the general insurance division in a simultaneous purchase of Legal & General's General Insurance division for £800m[23] 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.[24]

Life assurance products covering with-profits assurance, term assurance, whole life insurance, annuities 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 schemes through the acquisition from Swiss Re of the former G E Life businesses in the United Kingdom.[25]

In 1999 Liverpool Victoria was heavily criticised in a report by the Personal Investment Authority for "serious and widespread compliance failings" including hiring inept staff who offered customers poor financial advice.[26] The society was fined £900,000, the largest fine ever handed out by the PIA at the time.[27]

Liverpool Victoria Life Company Limited, then known as Permanent Insurance, was purchased from Equitable Life for £150 million in 2001.[28]

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.[29]

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.[30][31] In December 2021, members of Liverpool Victoria rejected selling the company to Bain Capital for a reported £530m.[32]

In August 2011 it was announced that the fund management services and OEICS 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.[33]

Liverpool Victoria Banking Services Limited, which came into the LV= group as part of the 1996 Frizzell acquisition, provided loans and credit cards until 2007 when the business was closed following heavy losses.[34] In 2008 the company was fined £840,000 by the FSA in connection with its past sale of payment protection insurance alongside loans.[35]

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=.[41] 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 LV.com, which the French luxury goods manufacturer Louis Vuitton had, in November 2006, failed to acquire from Manifest Information Services (aka Manifest Hostmaster and Manifest.com) through a WIPO law suit.[42]

In recent years the society has promoted itself through sponsorship of sport. As Liverpool Victoria, it sponsored the UK Snooker Championship from 1997–2000.[43] It has sponsored the cricket County Championship since 2002, initially (2002–2005) as Frizzell[44] (the name of an old established insurance business acquired in 1996),[45] in 2006 as Liverpool Victoria and since 2007 as LV=.[46] In rugby union, LV= signed a three-year sponsorship deal with Premiership club Harlequins in October 2008,[47] and in October 2009 signed a two-year deal to become title sponsor of the Anglo-Welsh Cup.[48] The 2023 Ashes series is sponsored by LV=.[49]

In 2007, for the first time in the society's history, television advertising was employed for car insurance and life assurance, the former featuring the song "Have Love, Will Travel",[50] and the latter featuring Cilla Black.[51]