Scottish Widows is a life insurance and pensions company located in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

, Scotland, and is a subsidiary of

Lloyds Banking Group Lloyds Banking Group is a British financial institution formed through the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB in 2009. It is one of the UK's largest financial services organisations, with 30 million customers and 65,000 employees. Lloyds Ban ...

. Its product range includes

life assurance Life insurance (or life assurance, especially in the Commonwealth of Nations) is a contract between an insurance policy holder and an insurer or assurer, where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money upon the death ...

and pensions. The company has been providing financial services to the UK market since 1815. The company sells products through independent financial advisers, direct to customers and through Lloyds Banking Group bank branches. The investment and asset management arm ( Scottish Widows Investment Partnership) was sold in 2013 to

Aberdeen Asset Management Aberdeen Asset Management was an international investment management group, managing assets for both institutions and private investors from offices around the world. Its head office was in Aberdeen, Scotland. The company was listed on the Lon ...

History

In March 1812, a number of prominent Scotsmen gathered in the Royal Exchange Coffee Rooms in Edinburgh. They were there to discuss setting up 'a general fund for securing provisions to widows, sisters and other female relatives' of fundholders so that they would not be plunged into poverty on the death of the fundholder during and after the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

. Scottish Widows' Fund and Life Assurance Society opened in 1815 as Scotland's first mutual life office. Its most noteworthy leader was Very Rev James Grant, who served as its director for 50 years (1840–1890). In 1999, Lloyds TSB agreed to buy the society for £7 billion. The society demutualised on 3 March 2000 as part of the acquisition. At the time of its takeover, Scottish Widows set up an "additional account" to hold £1.7 billion of the proceeds from the sale. This fund was to be used to enhance terminal bonuses across the company, but was eventually used to compensate guaranteed annuity rate options (GARs) holders. In April 2009, Lloyds Banking Group announced that the sales team of Clerical Medical would be merged into that of Scottish Widows, and the Clerical Medical brand would eventually be phased out. In November 2013, Lloyds Banking Group sold its asset management division, Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP) to Aberdeen Asset Management in a £660m deal. In 2015, Scottish Widows sold Clerical Medical's Isle of Man operations to international life assurance company RL360°.

Advertising

The Scottish Widow first appeared in a television advert directed by David Bailey in 1986. Since then, Scottish Widows has made 10 adverts featuring the Scottish Widow. Four models have portrayed the Scottish Widow, a hooded character featured in the company's advertising. The original Widow, chosen to portray the company's brand values in the 'Looking Good' commercial in 1986, was Deborah Moore, daughter of actor Roger Moore. In 1994, Amanda Lamb took over the role. Hayley Hunt became the third Scottish Widow in 2005. In 2014, the company announced that the fourth Scottish Widow would be Amber Martinez.

Sponsorships

Scottish Widows was the Official Pensions and Investment Provider of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The company employs athletes

Roger Black Roger Anthony Black MBE (born 31 March 1966) is a retired English athlete who competed internationally for Great Britain and England. During his athletics career, he won individual silver medals in the 400 metres sprint at both the Olympic Ga ...

MBE and

Sarah Storey Dame Sarah Joanne Storey, (née Bailey; born 26 October 1977) is a British Paralympic athlete in cycling and swimming, and a multiple gold medalist in the Paralympic Games, and six times British (able-bodied) national track champion (2 × Purs ...

OBE as their Olympic Ambassadors.

In popular culture

Scottish Widows is briefly mentioned in Yuval Harari's 2011 book '' Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.'' Harari confuses the present day company with an earlier fund set up half a century earlier by two ministers of the Church of Scotland on behalf of the widows of church ministers. Harari rightly credits the original fund as the first of its kind and describes the sequence of events accurately. The beneficiaries were, in that sense, Scottish widows. But there is no connection between the earlier fund, officially known as the Scottish Ministers' Widows Fund, and the present day Company. The original fund finally closed in 1993, its work done.

References

External links

Official website
{{Use dmy dates, date=September 2019 Financial services companies established in 1815 Companies based in Edinburgh British companies established in 1815 Insurance companies of Scotland Former mutual insurance companies Lloyds Banking Group Life insurance companies of the United Kingdom Scottish brands 1815 establishments in Scotland Widowhood in the United Kingdom 2000 mergers and acquisitions