Legal & General Group

Legal & General makes financial security easier to achieve for millions of people. To many retired people, the pension fund they have built up over the years is what they now depend on. Legal & General pay over £650 million in pensions each year to more than 290,000 people.

To a married couple, buying their first home marks a major step towards their new life. In 2002 Legal & General was involved in arranging around £19.2 billion worth of mortgages through intermediaries, via its Mortgage Club, 8.8% of the UK mortgage market.

Legal & General help protect the lives, health, homes and belongings of millions of people through it’s range of General Insurance and Protection products. 'Legal & General' was conceived in the minds of six lawyers, five barristers and a solicitor who found The Legal & General Life Assurance Society, the forerunner of today's Legal & General Group.

The Legal & General Life Assurance Society had unlimited liability and an initial authorised capital of £1 million in shares of £50 each, but with only £2 paid, making a total investment of just £40,000. On this the Society survived and slowly developed, and it was well over a century later before there was any enhancement of the capital structure.

Although membership at the time was restricted to the legal profession (a restriction that lasted until 1929), all 20,000 of the shares first issued were allotted within 18 months

Legal & General have always had a consistent aim, they have sought over many years to extend their services and product range in various areas of insurance - often introducing new ideas and concepts in the process.

For many years, too, Legal & General have played an increasingly strong role in underpinning economic, industrial and scientific progress: this is typified today, not only by Legal & General insuring massive new projects such as satellites in space, but also by backing financially the effective transfer of infant technologies to larger-scale production and commercial use.

Source www.legal-and-general.co.uk