The 12 November 1696 saw the establishment, in a London café, of Hand in Hand, a company whose area of business was fire insurance.
The 12 November 1696 saw the establishment, in a London café, of Hand in Hand, a company whose area of business was fire insurance. It was natural for this to be the main type of insurance requested on the market, given that only three decades before, London had been ravaged by a devastating fire in which over half of the houses there had been burnt down to their foundations. As time went on, Hand in Hand diversified its business activities, adding life insurance to its portfolio. In 1905, the Hand in Hand company was taken over by Commercial Union.
In 1706, another company, The Amicable Society (taken over in 1866 by Norwich Union) began providing life insurance and annuities, which at that time were viewed as extremely avant-garde products. Annuities formed a starting point for private pensions.
Other takeovers and acquisitions followed, after which, in 2002, the Aviva group of today was formed. Thanks to this pedigree, the Aviva group is considered to be the insurance group with the longest tradition in the sector.
Today, Aviva is the market leader for long-term savings products in Europe, a position upheld both by the total value of the assets which it administers and its sales figures for 2006.
"We are proud to work for a group which has enjoyed the trust of so many generations of customers over such a long period of time. We are delighted to be able to step up to the level of our customers' expectations in terms of the products that we provide: general insurance, life insurance or pensions. And we've done this even though we've gone through so many changes!
The reason we've survived for so long as a group is that we always have to factor in the future whenever we set an objective. We know that we must meet our customers' requirements and be here for them for another... 30 years or more!" declares Shah Rouf, CEO Aviva Group Romania.
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For further information:
Giliola Ignat - Marketing Manager / Advertising & PR
Telephone: 203 83 73
E-mail: giliola.ignat@aviva.ro
Note for editors:
About the Aviva group
Aviva is the oldest insurance group in the world and the largest in Great Britain, dating back to 1696. Today, Aviva has 59,000 employees and 40 million customers in 27 countries across the world.
Aviva is the market leader for pensions and life insurance in Europe. Aviva has revenue from insurance premiums and investments totalling €61 billion and administers over €535 billion worth of funds.
Aviva Romania
Aviva Romania includes three companies: Aviva Life Insurance, Aviva Administration Company for a Private Pension Fund, Certinvest (purchased on 13 September 2007).
About Aviva Life Insurance and Aviva Administration Company for a Private Pensions Fund
Aviva began operating as a provider of life insurance in Romania in 2000 and currently insures over 430,000 Romanians.
On 26 July 2007, Aviva received approval from the Oversight Committee for the System of Private Pensions to set up a company to administer private pensions (Aviva Administration Company for a Private Pension Fund SA), and on 25 August received authorisation to administer its mandatory pension fund - Pensia Viva.
About Certinvest
Certinvest currently administers €24 million in four mutual funds, each of them based around a different type of investment: Intercapital - a shares fund, Capital Plus - a balanced fund, Orizont - a fixed-income (bonds) fund and Tezaur, a capital market fund. Certinvest also administers individual investment accounts for high-earning customers.