1991 commercial for Allied Dunbar.

Allied Dunbar was a large British insurance company. In its early years as Hambro Life Assurance it was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. However it was acquired by the Zurich Financial Services in 1998.

History

The Company was founded by Lord Joffe, Sir Sydney Lipworth and Sir Mark Weinberg who set up its headquarters in Swindon town centre in 1970 under the name ‘Hambro Life Assurance’.  It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1975. 

The company expanded its financial adviser operations during the late 70’s and early 80’s to become ‘Allied Hambro’ in 1984, finally changing to ‘Allied Dunbar’ in 1985 when it purchased purchased Dunbar & Co., a small private bank, and following the acquisition by BAT Industries.  It was bought out by Zurich Financial Services in 1998 and its direct sales force became the Zurich Advice Network (ZAN) in 2001.

In 2005 and following changes in industry regulation ZAN evolved into a stand-alone limited entity known as Openwork – a directly authorised multi-tied financial distribution network.

^{Info gleaned from Wikipedia}