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Throwback Thursday: Howden saves insurers millions

Throwback Thursday

Insurance Post’s Throwback Thursday steps back in time to November 1975 to remind you what was going on this week in insurance history when Alexander Howden, the brokerage created by CEO of Howden Group’s David Howden’s great-great-great grandfather, boasted how much he was saving insurers.

27 November 1975: Howden saves insurers’ millions

A full-page advertisement in Post from Alexander Howden & Swann boasted the brokerage saved a major insurance company several million dollars.

The advertisement stated the brokerage proved their value by “presenting a report and recommendations that rationalised and increased the effectiveness of the company’s whole reinsurance programme”.

As “leaders in insurance in London since 1823”, the advert went on to state Alexander Howden brokers were experts in the “complex and demanding field of international reinsurance” in “just about any area of risk you care to name”.

Alexander Howden & Swann was later incorporated into Aon.

Howden’s great-great-great grandson David founded Howden Group Holdings in 1994 originally as a wholesale broker employing just three people.

Today, Howden is the fifth largest employee-owned business in the UK, and one of the largest insurance groups in the world.

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