Clerical Medical
| Clerical Medical Plc
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|---|---|
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| legal form | Public limited company |
| founding | 1824 |
| Seat | London , UK |
| Branch | Financial services |
| Website | www.clericalmedical.com |
The Clerical Medical Plc is a 1824 based financial services company in the UK , which on investment products in the life and annuity specializes. The company's headquarters are in London and, in addition to the British market, the company is also active in Germany , Austria and Italy . Clerical Medical has been part of the Lloyds Banking Group since 2009 .
Company history
In the spring of 1824, the physician Dr. George Pinckard in Bloomsbury Square , London met a committee of medics and clergy and distributed a brochure entitled "Prospectus for the Opening of a New Insurance Office with Improved Arrangements." The promised improvements, lower premium rates and wider risk coverage, should be extended to people who were burdened with gout, asthma and other diseases.
On June 18, 1824, at a meeting in " The Freemason's Tavern " in Great Queen Street, London, a resolution was passed to establish the Medical, Clerical and General Life Assurance Society as a life insurance company for medical professionals and clergymen - the academics of the time and the company was established. The Marquis of Huntly was named president.
In 1825 the company changed its name to the Clerical, Medical and General Life Assurance Society. At that time there was fierce competition in the life insurance market : between 1833 and 1840, 47 insurance companies were founded in England. However, Clerical Medical had a competitive advantage over the competition as it was the only company to offer its insurance policies exclusively to doctors and churchmen. In the years that followed, the range of services was expanded, and soon the company was the only one to insure “people with different life expectancies,” that is, those whose mortality rate was above average. This decision came at a time when diseases and epidemics were breaking out in the UK. Thousands of people died of cholera disease in 1839 alone, and many thousands more died of influenza in the 1830s and 1840s . Quite a few of them were insured with Clerical Medical.
Throughout its history, Clerical Medical has insured numerous famous people. So were z. B. concluded several life insurance policies for the British Queen Victoria , even before she ascended the throne in 1837. Her Prince Consort Albert and Benjamin Disraeli were also insured with Clerical Medical. In 1923, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini applied for an insurance policy with Clerical Medical. However, his application was rejected as an unacceptable risk, despite the fact that he offered - quite prophetically given its end - to exclude the risk of assassination.
In 1961, Clerical Medical was converted into a mutual insurance company by a parliamentary act so that the company became the sole property of its policyholders. In 1974 the company was converted into a stock corporation by parliamentary law .
In 1987, Clerical Medical founded its first international subsidiaries, primarily to be able to sell investment and insurance products internationally. In the following years the company expanded its business activities to include Germany, Austria, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
On January 1, 1997, the Halifax Group acquired the Clerical Medical and General Life Assurance Society for approximately £ 800 million. The mutual business has been transferred to Clerical Medical Investment Group Limited as part of the Halifax Group.
In July 2000, Clerical Medical International was divided into the two main business areas Clerical Medical Europe and Clerical Medical Offshore. Clerical Medical International was established in Luxembourg to primarily oversee the European business from there, whereas Clerical Medical Offshore, based on the Isle of Man, was primarily to concentrate on the Channel Islands market as well as Asia and the Middle East.
The biggest change for Clerical Medical came from the merger of the Bank of Scotland and Halifax to form the HBOS Group on September 10, 2001. Since January 2009, Clerical Medical has been part of the newly founded group due to the takeover of HBOS Group by Lloyds TSB in the wake of the global financial crisis Lloyds Banking Group .
Clerical Medical in Germany
Insurance and investment products have been sold in Germany since 1995. These primarily include pension insurance, life insurance and basic pensions.
In September 2005, the HBOS Group in Germany took over MLP Lebensversicherung AG, a subsidiary of MLP AG , for approx. 270 million euros. Since the beginning of 2006 this has been operating under the name “Heidelberger Lebensversicherung AG”, based in Heidelberg .
In January 2006, the sales model for Germany was fundamentally changed by merging the previously valid sales structure via so-called "Premium Distributors" into a uniform sales organization of "CMH Vertriebs Service GmbH". The HBOS Group took over the majority shares in the sales companies Securum AG, Vertriebs Service Partner GmbH & Co KG (VSP) and European Marketing & Financial Management AG (EMF AG) and has since offered German and British products from a single source in Germany.
Clerical Medical and Lever Models
In the years 1998 to 2006 various companies (e.g. Schneerente, Lex-Konzept-Rente, Europlan, Systemrente, Individualrente) offered financing and leverage models in which insurance policies from Clerical Medical were incorporated as capital investments. What these concepts had in common was that they were largely financed and based at least in part on the assumption that the return on the investments would be higher than the interest payable on the financing. Since investors' return expectations have mostly not been met, these investors are threatened with enormous losses from the concepts. This has led to a veritable wave of lawsuits (it is assumed that there are more than 1000 lawsuits) against Clerical Medical, with judgments from various courts in favor of Clerical Medical. It is controversial whether Clerical Medical should have provided information about certain risks and whether the advice of the above Company Clerical Medical is attributable.
On July 11, 2012, the Federal Court of Justice decided on the first 5 complaints. With these landmark rulings, the Federal Court of Justice basically confirmed the investors' claims. In the opinion of the Federal Court of Justice, aggrieved investors even have the choice between the obligation of Clerical Medical to pay the regular payments (usually over several decades) assigned in the insurance policy regardless of the contract value or the reversal of the entire model and indemnification of the investors. After these rulings, experts expect another massive wave of lawsuits against Clerical Medical.
Web links
- German official website of Clerical Medical
- Austrian official website of Clerical Medical
- Encyclopedia - Nationmaster.com
- Company history (PDF file; 62 kB)
- Profile of Clerical Medical
- Entry at Versicherungs-wiki.de
- Early documents and newspaper articles on Clerical Medical in the 20th Century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .