Liverpool Victoria, trading, since May 2007, as LV=, is one of the United Kingdom's largest insurance companies with over five million customers. It offers a range of insurance and retirement products.
History and legal constitution
Mission
Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society Limited was founded in 1843 as a burial society and, for many decades, Liverpool Victoria was most commonly associated with "penny policies" collected door-to-door by a cross-country team of agents to offer a method of saving to people of modest means. Today LV= expresses its mission as enabling people to "look after what they love" by the provision of insurance, investment and retirement services.
LV= acquired external bondholders following the issue, in May 2013, of £350 million of subordinated debt. 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.
Business activities
LV= offers services directly to consumers, as well as through IFAs and insurance brokers, and through strategic partnerships with organisations such as ASDA, Nationwide Building Society and some trades unions. At the start of 2015 LV= was ranked in a survey called the UK Institute of Customer Service Satisfaction Index 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
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 was boosted in October 2008 by the £150 million acquisition of Highway Insurance Group PLC, following a successful public offering for its shares. 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. General insurance products are also sold through white label partnership arrangements including Nationwide Building Society, 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 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. 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 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's General Insurance division for £800m which concluded with both of the respective firms becoming part of Allianz on 1st January 2020 with the general insurance division of L&G being renamed officially as Fairmead Insurance but keeping the L&G branding.
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. 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. 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 have confirmed that its mulling all its options including the sale of its life and pensions business with Fenchurch Advisory Partners advising on its options.
Investments
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.
Banking
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. In 2008 the company was fined £840,000 by the FSA in connection with its past sale of payment protection insurance alongside loans.
Offices
in Bloomsbury Square, 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 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 LV.com, which the French luxury goods manufacturer Louis Vuitton had, in November 2006, failed to acquire from Manifest Information Services through a WIPOlaw suit.
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 County Championship since 2002, initially as Frizzell, in 2006 as Liverpool Victoria and since 2007 as LV=. In rugby union, 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.
Television
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", and the latter featuring Cilla Black.
