Univé

Univé is a cooperative insurance company in the Netherlands. Univé presents itself as a nonprofit insurer, to express that making profit is not important and therefore has cheaper products.

There is no one single Univé. Univé is a cooperative association of 26 member cooperatives. These regional cooperatives have about 150 outlets in the Netherlands.

The central Univé organization consists of two large insurance companies, namely a life insurer, based in Assen and a health insurer in Alkmaar. The headquarters of the central organization is in Arnhem.

The regional cooperatives are themselves mutual insurance, which operate regionally. Each of these mutuals is in itself a provider of fire and storm insurances, and acts as an intermediary for the central insurance. The regional offices also sell other financial products such as life insurance and mortgages. Because the stated goal of the association is to provide the best possible services for the members (policyholders), the mutuals also offer other financial services products.

Both the central organization as the mutuals have each their own separate executive boards.

There are several affiliated organizations and companies.

Univé has about 3,100 employees, about half of them employed by the mutuals.

In May 2006, a collaboration with health insurer VGZ-IZA-Triassic was announced. The merger has been approved by the NMa and De Nederlandsche Bank and is effective as of January 1, 2007. The name of the insurance is for now Univé-VGZ-IZA-Trias.

Univé is the result of many mergers. The present company was founded in 1991 by the merger of DLG (Assen) and Novo (Zwolle). A year later health insurer Ziekenfonds Noord-Holland Noord from Alkmaar joined Unive, which has since dissolved again

The affiliated mutuals have a much longer history. The oldest existing mutual (mutual insurance Unive North Groningen BA) was founded in 1794.

Since 1996, Univé has had a website presence on the Internet. In 1997 the first online insurance (a moped policy) was sold.

In their capacity as damages insurer's Unive is involved in various initiatives aimed at limiting damages and their consequences as a sponsor, for example Veilig Verkeer Nederland and Slachtofferhulp Nederland.

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Wikipedia