A History of Methodist Insurance in Britain

The Methodist Insurance Company Ltd has been and still is an important institution in the Methodist denomination in Great Britain. Founded in 1933 following the merger of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, the Primitive Methodist Church, and the United Methodist Church the previous year, it was the result of amalgamating the insurance funds of those three denominations.This history will prove as definitive as the author’s study of the financing of John Wesley’s Methodism. In comparison with this volume, W. Russell Shearer’s 1972 account, Century of Service, looks decidedly superficial.Even in John Wesley’s day some chapels had a fire insurance policy, including Wesley’s City Road, London chapel. To bring this business in-house and to funnel a share of the profits into the denomination, three funds were set up between 1866 and 1888 to offer insurance against the risk of fire to Methodist chapels. While the Wesleyan and the Primitive funds came from independent limited companies with shareholders, the United insurance fund was a department of that Church.The respective funds were attractive in several respects: policies were restricted to connexional property; premium rates were competitive with commercial companies like the Sun; annual premiums were collected by superintendent ministers, thereby reducing costs; a share of the profits was directed to Methodist causes like the ‘Worn-Out Preachers’ Fund’; and managers, themselves Methodists, offered sympathetic and personal service in dealing with claims.Dr Norris identifies those who have been the guarantors or directors of the various funds throughout their history, giving occupational backgrounds, and sometimes a pen portrait, as with Thomas Bateman among the Primitives, and Sir Isaac Holden among the Wesleyans. (One slip: on 199, the director listed as Lord Hayer in 1939 must be Lord Hayter, Sir George Hayter Chubb [1848–1946]). In addition, Norris provides key performance data, showing, for example, the numbers and share of the denomination’s chapels that were insured against fire with their respective Methodist insurers.Over time, pressure from the state pushed Methodist insurers into other markets, albeit confined to ministers or the Methodist estate. Thus, the Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1906 led to policies offering accident cover to chapel keepers, paid organists, paid choirs, and ministers’ domestic servants, and later ministers themselves. That was reversed after 1948 when the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act came into force. To compensate for the loss of income, the Methodist Insurance Company offered to insure church volunteers who were not covered by the act.Rising risks from weather, particularly flooding, in the last seventy years impelled the Methodist Insurance Company to increase its premiums. Another pressure came from the shrinking size of the Methodist denomination, most evident in falling numbers of members, chapels, and ministers. To counter these changes, in 1998 the Methodist Insurance Company went into partnership with the Church of England’s Ecclesiastical Insurance Office. Child abuse claims in the twenty-first century compelled the setting aside of further funds. But insurance of property remained the largest risk category and the largest source of premiums.Considering, in conclusion, the significance of the Methodist Insurance Company Norris sees it as ‘a model for the purpose-driven collective endeavour through which humanity seeks salvation from its worst excesses’ (298).

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