GEICO

The Government Employees Insurance Company (GEICO) is an auto insurance company. It is the second largest auto insurer in the United States, after State Farm. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway that as of 2014 provided coverage for more than 22 million motor vehicles owned by more than 13 million policy holders. GEICO writes private passenger automobile insurance in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. GEICO uses a direct-to-consumer sales model. Its mascot is a Gold dust day gecko with a Cockney accent, voiced by English comedian and actor Jake Wood. GEICO is well known in popular culture for its advertising, having made a large number of commercials intended to amuse viewers.

History
GEICO was founded in 1936 by Leo Goodwin, Sr. and his wife Lillian to provide auto insurance directly to federal government employees and their families. Since 1925, Goodwin had worked for USAA, an insurer which specialized in insuring only military personnel; he decided to start his own company after rising as far as a civilian could go in USAA's military-dominated hierarchy. Based on Goodwin's experience at USAA, GEICO's original business model was predicated on the assumption that federal employees as a group would constitute a less risky and more financially stable pool of insureds, as opposed to the general public. Despite the presence of the word "government" in its name, GEICO has always been a private corporation not affiliated with any government organization.

In 1937, the Goodwins relocated GEICO from San Antonio, Texas to Washington, D.C. and reincorporated the company as a D.C. corporation after realizing that their business model would work best in the place with the highest concentration of federal employees.

An important figure in GEICO's history is David Lloyd Kreeger, who became president of the company in 1964 and helped steer it into a major insurance enterprise. In 1948, he formed a group of investors who bought into GEICO right before it went public that year. He became senior vice president and general counsel of the company. Six years after becoming president of GEICO in 1964, he was named chairman and chief executive officer. He retained those titles until he retired in 1975. He continued as chairman of the executive committee until 1979, when he was named honorary chairman.

In 1974, under Kreeger's leadership, GEICO began to insure the general public, after real-time access to computerized driving records became available throughout the United States, and it was briefly the fifth-largest U.S. auto insurer. By 1975, it was clear that GEICO had expanded far too rapidly (during the 1973–75 recession) when it reported a $126.5 million loss. To prevent GEICO from collapsing, a consortium of 45 insurance companies agreed to take over a quarter of its policies, and it was forced to issue a stock offering (thus diluting existing stockholders) to raise money to pay claims. It took five years (during which the company shrank significantly) and a massive reorganization to set GEICO on the path to recovery.

GEICO has also offered other types of insurance besides auto, including homeowner's insurance from 1962 to 1996. A sister company, the Government Employees Life Insurance Company (GELICO), offered life insurance from 1975 to 1985. Although GEICO has since focused on its core auto insurance competency (selling GELICO to Legal & General), it uses its established direct sales infrastructure to market homeowner's and other types of insurance underwritten by other companies.

In 1996, after many years as a publicly traded firm, GEICO became a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.

GEICO generally deals directly with consumers via telephone and internet; however, the local agent program has more than 150 offices countrywide. GEICO is now the second largest writer of private auto insurance in the United States.

Advertising campaigns

GEICO has many well-known ad campaigns. In 2012 GEICO spent over $1.1 billion in advertising, or 6.8% of its revenue. All are made and produced by The Martin Agency, which is based in Richmond, Virginia. GEICO ads have featured several well-known mascots, including:

- Martin, The GEICO Gecko is the most prevalent spokesperson mascot and speaks with a Cockney accent.
- The GEICO Cavemen (from ads claiming using their website is "so easy, a caveman could do it").
- Maxwell, the GEICO "Piggy" who shouts a long "Whee" and appears in more radio and TV commercials.
- Actor Mike McGlone, who uses film noir-style narration to compare the ease of GEICO to things, famous people, or idioms. ("Could switching to GEICO really save you 15% or more on car insurance?...Is having a snowball fight with pitching great Randy Johnson a bad idea?") The scene is then acted out, with typically humorous results. In addition to Johnson, other ads have included Charlie Daniels, Andres Cantor, Foghorn Leghorn, Elmer Fudd, R. Lee Ermey, and Ed "Too Tall" Jones among others, including Maxwell the Piggy.
- The "money savers" campaign enlisted actors to portray average consumers who have resorted to various humorous extremes in order to save money, such as teaching a dog to sing or teaching a group of Guinea pigs to row a boat and perform some mundane task for the consumer, and then presented switching to GEICO as an easy alternative to such endeavors with the common line ".... there's an easier way to save money."
- The "Happier Than...." duo features Jimmy and Ronnie playing a guitar and a mandolin, respectively, on a small portable stage. They comment on a fictitious preceding event, such as a man dressed in 15th century attire laughing as he leads a trio of speed boats with the painted names Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. After cutting to the duo, one says to the other "You know, folks who save hundreds of dollars by switching to GEICO sure are happy." The other then replied, "How happy are they, (Jimmy/Ronnie)?" and in the case above, the response is "Happier than Christopher Columbus with speedboats!"

There are also GEICO ads that feature stories from GEICO customers about situations in which the company assisted them, but are translated by celebrities like Little Richard and Joan Rivers. Film trailer announcer Don LaFontaine appeared in one such ad, shortly before his death. The tag announcer for these spots was D.C. Douglas. GEICO is also an official sponsor of the National Hockey League and themed commercials for that always feature members of the hometown Washington Capitals.

AIA Group

AIA Group Limited  known as AIA  is the largest independent public listed pan-Asian life insurance group. It has a presence in 18 markets in Asia-Pacific, wholly owned branches and subsidiaries in Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Korea, the Philippines, Australia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Vietnam, New Zealand, Macau, Brunei, a 97% subsidiary in Sri Lanka, a 26% joint venture in India, and representative offices in Myanmar and Cambodia.

AIA traces its roots back to 1919 when an enterprising young man named Cornelius Vander Starr opened an insurance agency in Shanghai, China. Vander Starr eventually expanded his business throughout Asia, the US, and worldwide. In 1945, he relocated his head office from Shanghai to New York after a forced exit from mainland China. Thus the Asian AIA became a subsidiary of New York-based American International Group (AIG).

In 2009 AIA split from AIG after it was finalized that AIA, as well as ALICO (another AIG subsidiary), were placed under the administration of a special purpose vehicle in exchange for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

AIA was planned to be listed in Hong Kong Stock Exchange in April 2010. However, in March 2010, Prudential PLC, a UK-based financial services and securities company, announced that it would buy AIA for US$35.5 billion. The purchase later fell through, and AIA held an IPO in October 2010, raising approximately HK$159.08 billion (US$20.51 billion), the world's third largest IPO ever.

In September 2012, AIA agreed to acquire a 92.3% stake in Sri Lankan insurer Aviva NDB Insurance from British insurer Aviva and Sri Lanka's National Development Bank (NDB). In addition, AIA entered into an exclusive 20-year bancassurance agreement with NDB, one of Sri Lanka's largest financial conglomerates with a nationwide bank branch network.

In October 2012, AIA announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire ING Group's Malaysian insurance subsidiaries for a cash consideration of €1.336 billion (US$1.73 billion).

In December 2012, AIA was informed by AIG that AIG had entered into a placing agreement to sell all of its ordinary shares of AIA at a price of HK$30.30 per share. Upon completion of the placing, AIG fully divested its previous 13.69% AIA share holdings.

On 15 August 2013, AIA had become English Premier League football club Tottenham Hotspur's Cup Shirt sponsor for the 2013-2014 season.

In December 2013, AIA and Citibank reached an agreement on a landmark exclusive bancassurance partnership that encompasses 11 markets in the Asia-Pacific region. The markets included in the agreement are: Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, China, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Australia, India, and Korea.

In February 2014, the insurer announced that it entered into a five-year major partnership with Tottenham Hotspur. Under the agreement, the AIA brand will feature on the shirts of Spur players in all competitions until the end of the 2018-2019 season.

In June 2014, AIA Singapore was named "Best Employer to Work For in Asia" and received the award from HR Asia.

Toronto-Dominion Bank

The Toronto-Dominion Bank (French: Banque Toronto-Dominion) is a Canadian multinational
banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Toronto. Commonly known as TD and operating as TD Bank Group (French: Groupe Banque TD), the bank was created in 1955 through the merger of the Bank of Toronto and the Dominion Bank, which were founded in 1855 and 1869, respectively.

TD Bank Group is the second largest bank in Canada by market capitalization and a top-10 bank in North America. Globally, it ranks as the 19th largest bank in the world, according to Forbes.
The bank and its subsidiaries have over 85,000 employees and over 22 million clients worldwide. In Canada, the bank operates as TD Canada Trust and serves more than 11 million customers at over 1,150 branches. In the United States, the company operates as TD Bank (the initials are used officially for all U.S. operations). The U.S. subsidiary was created through the merger of TD Banknorth and Commerce Bank, and serves more than 6.5 million customers with a network of more than 1,300 branches in the eastern United States.
The company is ranked at number 66 on the Forbes Global 2000 2015 listing. In October 2008, the company was named in the listings of Canada's Top 100 Employers in Maclean's and Greater Toronto's Top Employers by the Toronto Star. Furthermore, in February 2011, it was named one of Canada's top 10 employers by the Financial Post.

History

The origins of the Toronto-Dominion Bank lie in the efforts of a group of businessmen in the Province of Canada West (as Ontario was called between 1840 and 1867), involved in the buying, milling and marketing of grain. They were determined to create a financial institution to meet their specific needs in banking, insurance and commodities exchange. The group submitted its first petition for the incorporation of the Millers, Merchants and Farmers Bank of Canada West in 1854 to the legislature of the province of Canada, which rejected the request. However, on March 18, 1855, their application for a charter for the Bank of Toronto, with an authorized capital of £500,000, was granted.
In July 1856, the Bank of Toronto opened its offices at 78 Church Street, Toronto, with a staff of three and immediately began development of a provincial network of branches. In 1860, it opened its first branch outside of Ontario, in Montreal.

The Bank of Toronto established itself as an efficient, profitable, but essentially conservative bank through the 19th century. It maintained a very high reserve against its capital and enjoyed the highest share price of any bank in Canada. Growth was very slow and deliberate with a few new branches opened in emerging regional centres. Core customers remained farmers, merchants, and processors of farm products (millers, brewers, distillers).

In 1871, a group of entrepreneurs and professionals under the leadership of James Austin launched the Dominion Bank to join the Bank of Toronto in the Ontario market. They were dedicated to creating a new institution "conducive to the general prosperity of that section of the country." Like the Bank of Toronto, the Dominion Bank was a cautious institution, "selecting its customers carefully, serving them well, and duly prospering with them" (in the words of the official history). It also created a network of branches, and in 1872 became the first Canadian bank to have two branches in one city – Toronto.

With the maturing of the Canadian economy and the opening of northern Ontario and the West in the 1880s and 1890s, the banks became more aggressive in loans to resource industries, utilities, and manufacturing. In 1897, the Dominion Bank opened its first western branch in Winnipeg and two years later the Bank of Toronto opened a branch in the British Columbia mining town of Rossland. In the first decade of the twentieth century, the banks rapidly expanded their branch networks in central Canada and across the west.

To mark their rise as significant national institutions, the Dominion Bank moved into a large new head office building at the corner of King and Yonge Streets in Toronto in 1879 and the Toronto Bank followed with another landmark head office at King and Bay Street in 1913.]
World War I brought new challenges for the two banks when they were called upon to finance war expenditures and to support the innovation of war bonds marketed to the general public. Half the staff of the two banks served in the armed forces.

Except for some contraction in the western provinces due to drought, the decade following the war was one of expansion and increasing profitability due to resource development and industrial expansion. Both banks weathered the storm of depression in the 1930s without great difficulty, despite a decline in earnings. Like all Canadian banks, they endured criticism of their credit policies and resisted the creation of a central bank to control the money supply and advise on fiscal policy. Ultimately the Bank of Canada was established in 1934 and by 1949, private banks were ordered to remove their currency from circulation.

The Travelers Companies

The Travelers Companies is an American insurance company. It is the second largest writer of U.S. commercial property casualty insurance and the third largest writer of U.S. personal insurance through independent agents. Travelers is incorporated in Minnesota, with headquarters in New York City and its largest office in Hartford, Connecticut. Travelers also maintains a large office in St. Paul, Minnesota. It has been a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average since June 8, 2009.

The company has field offices in every U.S. state, plus operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Singapore, China, Canada, and Brazil. In 2014, the company reported revenues of US $27 billion and total assets of US $103 billion.

Travelers, through its subsidiaries and approximately 14,000 independent agents and brokers, provides commercial and personal property and casualty insurance products and services to businesses, government units, associations, and individuals. The company offers insurance through three segments:

Personal Insurance, which includes home, auto and other insurance products for individuals

Business Insurance, which includes a broad array of property and casualty insurance and insurance-related services in the United States

Bond and Specialty Insurance, which includes surety, crime, and financial liability businesses which primarily use credit-based underwriting processes, as well as property and casualty products that are predominantly marketed on an international basis.

History

Saint Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Co. was founded March 5, 1853, in St. Paul, Minnesota, serving local customers who were having a difficult time getting claim payments in a timely manner from insurance companies on the east coast of the United States. It barely survived the Panic of 1857 by dramatically paring down its operations and later reorganizing itself into a stock company (as opposed to a mutual company). It soon spread its operations across the country. In 1998 it acquired USF&G, known formerly as United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company, an insurance company based in Baltimore, Maryland, but was forced to downsize by almost half due to a competitive marketplace.

Travelers was founded in 1864 in Hartford. It was originally founded to provide travel insurance to railroad travelers at a time when travel was far more risky and dangerous than today, hence the name. Along the way it had many industry firsts, including the first automobile policy, the first commercial airline policy, and the first policy for space travel. By the early 1990s, Travelers was predominantly a general property and casualty insurer that also happened to do some travel insurance on the side, and it quietly exited its original business in 1993. What was left of Travelers' travel insurance business was acquired by a private entrepreneur and is now known as Travel Insured International.

The Travelers logo, ca. 1993

In the 1990s, it went through a series of mergers and acquisitions. It was bought by Primerica in 1993, but the resulting company retained the Travelers name. In 1995 it became The Travelers Group. It bought Aetna's property and casualty business in 1996.

In 1998, the Travelers Group merged with Citicorp to form Citigroup. However, the synergies between the banking and insurance arms of the company did not work as well as planned, so Citigroup spun off Travelers Property and Casualty into a subsidiary company in 2002, although it kept the red umbrella logo. Three years later, Citigroup sold Travelers Life & Annuity to MetLife. In 2003,Travelers bought renewal rights for Royal & SunAlliance Personal Insurance and Commercial businesses.

In 2004, the St. Paul and Travelers Companies merged and renamed itself St. Paul Travelers, with the headquarters set in St. Paul, Minnesota. In August of that year, it was charged of misleading statements associated with the merger.Despite many assurances from CEO Jay Fishman that the newly formed company would retain the St. Paul name, the corporate name only lasted until 2007, when the company repurchased the rights to the famous red umbrella logo from Citigroup and readopted it as its main corporate symbol, while also changing the corporate name to The Travelers Companies.

Notably, many of Travelers' ancestor companies, such as St. Paul and USF&G, are still around today and still write policies and accept claims, but only on paper. As is typical of most insurers in the United States, Travelers never dissolved the various companies it acquired, but simply made them wholly owned subsidiaries and trained its employees to act on behalf of those subsidiaries. This is a common risk management strategy used by U.S. insurance groups. If any one company in the group gets hit with too many claims, the situation can be easily contained to that one company (which is placed in runoff and allowed to run its policies to completion), while the remainder of the group continues to operate normally.

Prudential plc

Prudential plc is a British multinational life insurance and financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It was founded in London in May 1848 as The Prudential Mutual Assurance Investment and Loan Association to provide loans to professional and working people.

Prudential's largest division is Prudential Corporation Asia, which has over 13 million customers across 12 Asian markets and is a top-three provider of life insurance in Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam. Its Prudential UK division has around 7 million customers and is a leading provider of life insurance and pensions in the UK. Prudential also owns Jackson National Life Insurance Company, which is one of the largest life insurance providers in the United States, and M&G Investments, a Europe-focused asset manager with total assets under management of £547 billion at June 2014.

In December 2013 Prudential acquired the Ghanaian life insurance company, Express Life, marking its entry into the African direct life insurance market. Prudential subsequently rebranded the business as Prudential Ghana. In September 2014, it purchased Kenyan life insurer Shield Assurance, rebranding the company as Prudential Kenya.

Prudential has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It had a market capitalisation of approximately £41,630 million as of 4 February 2015. Prudential has secondary listings on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange and Singapore Exchange.

History
1848 to 2000
The company was founded on 30 May 1848 in Hatton Garden in London as The Prudential Mutual Assurance Investment and Loan Association providing loans to professional and working people.

In 1854, the Company began selling the relatively new concept of industrial branch insurance policies to the working class population for premiums as low as one penny through agents acting as door to door salesmen. The army of premium collection agents was for many years identified with the Prudential as the "Man from the Pru".

It moved to its traditional home at Holborn Bars in 1879 and converted to a limited company in 1881. The building was designed by Alfred Waterhouse, and is built of terracotta manufactured by Gibbs and Canning Limited of Tamworth (c.1878) — two of the same driving forces behind the Natural History Museum in London.

The Prudential Assurance Company Limited was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1924.

In 1986, Prudential acquired the American insurer Jackson National Life. In 1997, Prudential acquired Scottish Amicable, a business originally founded in 1826 in Glasgow as the West of Scotland Life Insurance Company, for £1.75bn.

In 1998, Prudential set up Egg, an internet bank within the UK. The subsidiary reached 550,000 customers within nine months but had difficulty achieving profitability. In June 2000 an initial public offering of 21% was made to allow for further growth of the internet business but in February 2006 Prudential decided to repurchase the 21% share of Egg. Egg was subsequently sold to Citibank in January 2007.

In 1999, M&G, a UK fund management company, was acquired.

In June 2000, the Company was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange to help focus on the US market.

2000 to present
In October 2004 Prudential launched a new subsidiary, PruHealth, a joint venture with Discovery Holdings of South Africa selling private medical insurance to the UK market.

In April 2008 Prudential outsourced its back office functions to Capita: about 3,000 jobs were transferred (1,000 in Stirling, 750 in Reading and 1,250 in Mumbai). This significant outsourcing deal, worth an estimated £722m over a 15-year contract, built on Prudential's existing relationship with Capita who took over its Belfast operation in 2006 along with approximately 450 employees in a smaller operational restructure.

On 1 March 2010, Prudential announced that it was in "advanced talks" to purchase the pan-Asian life insurance company of AIG, American International Assurance (AIA) for approximately £23 billion. The deal later collapsed and AIA ended up raising money in an IPO.

In December 2013, Prudential announced the purchase of Ghana’s Express Life Company. Express Life was subsequently rebranded as Prudential Ghana. .In April, Prudential launched two corporate responsibility initiatives to support education in Ghana: the Prudential Scholarship Programme for more than 500 senior high school students, in partnership with the NGO Plan Ghana; and a scheme to support actuarial science graduates.

In September 2014, Prudential purchased Kenyan life insurer Shield Assurance and rebranded it as Prudential Ghana, further expanding the company’s presence in Africa.

On 10 March 2015, it was announced that the CEO, Tidjane Thiam, would leave Prudential to become the next CEO of Credit Suisse. On 1 May 2015, it was announced that Mike Wells, head of the company's US business, would succeed Tidjane Thiam as CEO, on a pay package worth up to £7.5 million.

Berkshire Hathaway

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. The company wholly owns GEICO, BNSF, Lubrizol, Dairy Queen, Fruit of the Loom, Helzberg Diamonds, FlightSafety International, and NetJets, owns 26% of Kraft Heinz Company and an undisclosed percentage of Mars, Incorporated, and has significant minority holdings in American Express, The Coca-Cola Company, Wells Fargo, IBM and Restaurant Brands International. Berkshire Hathaway averaged an annual growth in book value of 19.7% to its shareholders for the last 49 years (compared to 9.8% from the S&P 500 with dividends included for the same period), while employing large amounts of capital, and minimal debt.

The company is known for its control and leadership by Warren Buffett, who is the company's Chairman of the Board, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and Charlie Munger, the company's Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors. In the early part of Buffett's career at Berkshire, he focused on long-term investments in publicly traded companies, but more recently he more frequently bought whole companies. Berkshire now owns a diverse range of businesses including confectionery, retail, railroad, home furnishings, encyclopedias, manufacturers of vacuum cleaners, jewelry sales, newspaper publishing, manufacture and distribution of uniforms, and several regional electric and gas utilities.

According to the Forbes Global 2000 list and formula, Berkshire Hathaway is the fifth largest public company in the world. On August 14, 2014, the price of the company's 'A' shares hit $200,000 per share for the first time in the history of the company.

History
Berkshire Hathaway traces its roots to a textile manufacturing company established by Oliver Chace in 1839 as the Valley Falls Company in Valley Falls, Rhode Island. Chace had previously worked for Samuel Slater, the founder of the first successful textile mill in America. Chace founded his first textile mill in 1806. In 1929 the Valley Falls Company merged with the Berkshire Cotton Manufacturing Company established in 1889, in Adams, Massachusetts. The combined company was known as Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates.

In 1955 Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates merged with the Hathaway Manufacturing Company which had been founded in 1888 in New Bedford, Massachusetts by Horatio Hathaway with profits from whaling and the China Trade. Hathaway had been successful in its first decades, but it suffered during a general decline in the textile industry after World War I. At this time, Hathaway was run by Seabury Stanton, whose investment efforts were rewarded with renewed profitability after the Depression. After the merger Berkshire Hathaway had 15 plants employing over 12,000 workers with over $120 million in revenue and was headquartered in New Bedford. However, seven of those locations were closed by the end of the decade, accompanied by large layoffs.

In 1962, Warren Buffett began buying stock in Berkshire Hathaway after noticing a pattern in the price direction of its stock whenever the company closed a mill. Eventually, Buffett acknowledged that the textile business was waning and the company's financial situation was not going to improve. In 1964, Stanton made an oral tender offer of $111⁄2 per share for the company to buy back Buffett's shares. Buffett agreed to the deal. A few weeks later, Warren Buffett received the tender offer in writing, but the tender offer was for only $113⁄8. Buffett later admitted that this lower, undercutting offer made him angry. Instead of selling at the slightly lower price, Buffett decided to buy more of the stock to take control of the company and fire Stanton (which he did). However, this put Buffett in a situation where he was now majority owner of a textile business that was failing.

Buffett initially maintained Berkshire's core business of textiles, but by 1967, he was expanding into the insurance industry and other investments. Berkshire first ventured into the insurance business with the purchase of National Indemnity Company. In the late 1970s, Berkshire acquired an equity stake in the Government Employees Insurance Company (GEICO), which forms the core of its insurance operations today (and is a major source of capital for Berkshire Hathaway's other investments). In 1985, the last textile operations (Hathaway's historic core) were shut down.

In 2010, Buffett claimed that purchasing Berkshire Hathaway was the biggest investment mistake he had ever made, and claimed that it had denied him compounded investment returns of about $200 billion over the subsequent 45 years. Buffett claimed that had he invested that money directly in insurance businesses instead of buying out Berkshire Hathaway (due to what he perceived as a slight by an individual), those investments would have paid off several hundredfold.

Zurich Insurance Group

Zurich Insurance Group Ltd. is a Swiss insurance company, commonly known as Zurich, headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland. The company is Switzerland's largest insurer. As of 2013, the group was the world's 75th largest public company according to Forbes' Global 2000s list, and in 2011 it ranked 94th in Interbrand's top100 brands.

Zurich is a global insurance company which is organized into three core business segments: General Insurance, Global Life and Farmers. Zurich employs around 60,000 people serving customers in more than 170 countries and territories around the globe. The company is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange. As of 2012 its capital position was strong, with shareholders' equity of $34.494 billion.

History
The company was founded in 1872 as a marine reinsurance under the name "Versicherungs-Verein" (Insurance Association), a subsidiary of the Schweiz Marine Company. In 2000, after a number of acquisitions, it was unified to form one holding company – Zurich Financial Services.

In April 2012, Zurich Financial Services Ltd changed its name to Zurich Insurance Group Ltd. In a statement the Group explained the rationale behind the name change. "In recognition of this strategic focus, the reference to financial services in the company name has been replaced by indicating the insurance activity of the Group instead and to specify the purpose accordingly."

Core business segments

General Insurance
Zurich's General Insurance business serves individuals, small and medium-sized businesses and major multinational corporations with motor, home, and commercial products and services.

Global Life
Zurich's Global Life business offers life insurance, savings, investment and pension products. In the United States life insurance is issued by Zurich American Life Insurance Company with offices in Schaumburg, Illinois and New York City.

Farmers
Zurich's Farmers segment includes Farmers Management Services, which provides non-claims related management services to the Farmers Exchanges (not owned by Zurich), as well as the Farmers RE business which includes reinsurance assumed from the Farmers Exchange by the Group. Zurich’s Farmers Insurance Group is the third largest insurance group in the United States.

Corporate social responsibility
In 2009, Zurich was awarded Charity Times "Best Insurance Services" and was shortlisted again in 2010. In 2012 the Zurich Community Trust (UK) won the Cross Sector Partnership of the Year Award for its partnership with the treatment charity Addaction.

According to its website, Zurich Community Trust has donated over £60 million since 1972, with the goal of addressing key social issues. It has supported over 600 charities a year, making a measurable impact on the lives of over 80,000 people. Zurich was one of the first recipients of the Community Mark from Business in the Community which it has successfully retained for three years.

At a group level, the Z Zurich Foundation's mission is to help individuals and communities understand and manage risk, leveraging Zurich's core strengths as an insurer. Zurich is achieving this aim by working with long-term partnership with select non-profit organizations such as Practical Action, the Rainforest Alliance, and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

In March 2012, Zurich reinforced its commitment to the Z Zurich foundation by making a substantial investment of $100 million.

In 2011, Zurich launched a free online resource – My Community Starter – designed to make getting involved in community activities more simple.

On 24 October 2002, Zurich North America hosted a ceremony at the 9/11 Tribute Center honoring the winners of its 2012 K.A.M.P. awards, a program created as a living legacy to the four employees killed on 9/11: John Keohane, Peggy Alario, Kathy Moran and Ludwig Picarro.

In March 2013, Zurich announced its global flood resilience program, which aims to enhance community flood resilience by finding innovative ways to increase the impact of disaster risk reduction efforts at community, national and global levels. The first country program is taking place in Mexico and Indonesia. To maximize the community impact of the program, Zurich has formed a strategic alliance with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).