Scottish Widows

Scottish Widows is a life insurance and pensions company located in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is a subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group. Its product range includes life assurance 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. 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. Scottish Widows' Fund and Life Assurance Society opened in 1815 as Scotland's first mutual life office. Regulations made in 1811 showed its focus on providing annuities for dependants, but this quickly became only a small part of the company's business. They also set eligibility requirements; for example, those over fifty years old or those with a wife more than twenty years younger than himself could not apply.