Swiss Life

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The Swiss Life Group is the largest life insurance company of Switzerland. Its seat is in Zurich. The Swiss Life Group has 8,500 employees and administers approximately 139 billion Swiss francs.

History

Continuous Growth

Contrad Widmer established "Schweizerische Rentenanstalt" in 1857 as the first life insurance company in Switzerland. Alfred Escher was integrally involved in the development of the cooperative. The goal of the company was to provide Swiss families a sufficiently solid foundation by providing insurance against the uncertainties of life. In 1866 Widmer a license in Prussia. A year later, the annuity establishment had business operations in Hamburg and Bremen. The German branch split from the company. All of the policies were hand written in Zurich. Beginning in 1894, the establishment was one of the first insurance institutions to offer occupational insurance. Between 1866 and 1987, Rentenanstalt expanded to Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain, Spain, Luxembourg and Italy.In 1988 it took over La Suisse insurance company in Lausanne.

Going Corporate

In 1997 under the management of Martin Lopez, Rentenanstalt changed from a cooperative into a publicly traded company. In 1998 Rentenstalt/Swiss Life shares debuted on the SMI index. SwissLife then advanced on a expansionary strategy acquiring Livit, Banca del Gottardo, the Lloyd Continental and UTO Albis in 1999, Schweizerische Treuhandgesellschaft in 2000, a takeover of the real estate properties of Oscar Weber Holding AG in 2001. Finally in 2002, new acquisitions ceased as the company looked to restructure as many felt it was too big and had becoming [ [http://report.swisslife.com/2002_ye/swisslife/page.asp@pageid375528356927718634folderid826663984946~1.htm Swiss Life > Jahr 2002 > Neue strategische Ausrichtung ] ] [http://www.schweizerbank.ch/de/sesselwechsel/sesselwechsel.asp?pkBerichtNr=56456] [http://www.schweizerbank.ch/de/sesselwechsel/sesselwechsel.asp?pkBerichtNr=56981] [http://www.schweizerbank.ch/de/sesselwechsel/sesselwechsel.asp?pkBerichtNr=59193] .

Restructuring

In 2003, the company changed its name to "Swiss Life" for all its operations except in the Netherlands where is remains under the old name "Zwitser Leven". It sold its British operations to Resolution Life Group.

In November 2007, Swiss Life sold off Banca del Gottardo for 1.775 billion CHF. [http://www.swisslife.ch/slch/de/home/newsmedia/newsitem.20071107.html Medienmitteilung von Swiss Life zum Verkauf der Banca del Gottardo] ] On December 3, 2007, Swiss Life announced that it had launched a takeover bid of AWD Holding AG. On March 13, 2008, Swiss Life had successfully acquired a total of 86.2% of AWD. [http://www.swisslife.com/slcom/de/home/media/press_releases.20080319.html Medienmitteilung Swiss Life, 19.03.2008 - Swiss Life hält 86,2% an AWD] ]

Products

Swiss Life offers for both individuals and corporations policies a variety of policies including disability insurance, accident insurance as well as annuity insurance and life insurance.

ponsorship

Swiss Life is a sponsor of the Swiss National Football Team, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. Additionally, Swiss Life is a partner of Circus Knie.

ee also

*Insurance
*Insurance companies
*Swiss Life Arena

References

External links

* [http://www.swisslife.com/ Official site]
* [http://www.gottardo.com/ Banca del Gottardo]
* [http://www.livit.ch/ Livit AG]