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financial financial services - ACRM atlantainfertility.com | Lake Zurich Chiropractor, Lake Zurich Illinois: Back to health wellness backtohealthcenter.net | Healthcare Financial Services Office | Miller Children's Hospital memorialcare.org |
Zurich Financial Services AG (SIX: ZURN) is a major financial services group based in Zürich, Switzerland.
[edit] HistoryThe Company was founded in 1872 as subsidiary of the Schweiz Marine Insurance Company under the name Versicherung Verein (Insurance Club).[2] The Company changed its name to Zurich Marine and Accident Insurance in 1875[2] and to Zurich General Accident and Liability Insurance in 1894.[2] In 1998 the Company acquired British American Financial Services, a business owned by BAT Industries comprising Eagle Star (acquired in 1984), Allied Dunbar (acquired in 1985) and the Farmers Group, Inc. (acquired in 1988), for $18.6 billion.[3] In 2000 the structure of business, which had previously involved dual holding companies (Allied Zurich plc in the UK and Zurich Allied AG in Switzerland), was unified to form one holding company - Zurich Financial Services.[4] In 2008, Zurich launched its biggest global campaign, and while some of the messaging is about the health of the company's balance sheet (when it recovered, it focused on its core business and avoided risky growth strategies), the effort was developed mainly to assuage consumers' mistrust of the insurance companies in general. [edit] Structure The Zurich Financial Services Group is a leading supplier of Insurance and Risk Management, specialising in both Life and General Insurance. The organisation is split into 3 business segments:
[edit] General InsuranceGeneral Insurance serves individuals, small and medium-sized businesses, commercial enterprises and major multinational corporations. General Insurance is the largest segment. Within General Insurance, individual business areas focus on specific segments and markets where they see opportunities for sustained and profitable growth. It is split into a number of divisions:
The Asia Pacific and Middle East (led by Geoff Riddell) division operates in Asia Pacific, the Middle East and other markets. It serves personal lines and commercial customers directly, and through tied agents, independent agents and brokers. [edit] World Wide Operations and Territories[edit] EuropeBesides its home market Switzerland, Zurich's key markets in Europe are Austria, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom (in alphabetical order). Zurich has major offices in many of the major financial cities in these countries including, London, Leeds, Glasgow, Dublin, Frankfurt, Rome, Milan and the headquarters in Zürich. [edit] North AmericaIn 1912, Zurich became the first foreign insurer to enter the US market. The US consumer market is served primarily by Farmers Insurance Group the third largest personal lines property & casualty insurance group in America. Founded in 1928, the Farmers Exchanges and their subsidiaries, which are Zurich managed but not Zurich owned, operate in 41 states through a network of 17,000 exclusive agents and 1,100 independent agents. The Chicago area-based Zurich North America is the third largest provider of commercial property-casualty insurance in North America, serving small business, mid-size markets and large corporate customers. In 2005, Zurich North America Commercial produced gross written premiums of USD 12.5 billion. Other Zurich companies in North America include:
[edit] InternationalZurich also has operations in Latin America, Asia Pacific and Southern Africa. [edit] CriticismIn 2006, Zurich Financial Services settled a $171 million case relating to bid rigging and price fixing.[5] "Businesses shopping for commercial insurance were deceived into believing they were getting the best deals available," said Abbott. "The whole anti-competitive scheme was an intentional smoke screen by several insurance players to artificially inflate premiums and pay improper commissions to those who brokered the deals." The states included in the settlement were Texas, California, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Zurich is also required to pay about $122 million[6] in refunds to commercial policyholders in a New Jersey class action lawsuit[7] settlement. Zurich Financial Services settled a bid-rigging and improper "finite reinsurance" transactions probe.[8] Zurich Financial agreed to pay $153 million in restitution and penalties and agreed to a series of reforms. Zurich apologized and acknowledged that "certain of its employees violated both acceptable business practices and Zurich's own standards of conduct by engaging in improper bidding practices and the ‘finite reinsurance’ transactions described in the Assurance of Discontinuance." The states included in the settlement were New York, Connecticut and Illinois. In May 2007, Zurich Capital Markets, a subsidiary of Zurich Financial Services, paid $16.8 million to settle with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission for helping four hedge funds disguise their identities to avoid detection when making frequent trades in mutual fund shares.[9] An SEC director stated, “By knowingly financing their hedge funds clients' deceptive market timing, ZCM reaped substantial fees at the expense of long-term mutual-fund shareholders" [10] On May 5 2008 Zurich announced a further 900 job losses in the general insurance sector of their UK operation.[11] [edit] See also[edit] References
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