Liverpool Victoria Friendly hunts DM agency

Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society is looking for an agency to handle the direct marketing account for its insurance business. The account is thought to be worth several million pounds.

The company is understood to be working with Creative Brief and is in the process of drawing up a shortlist. Liverpool Victoria uses a number of marketing services agencies including Redtag and TLG Marketing.

Liverpool Victoria says the company reviews its marketing arrangements on a “day-to-day basis”. The company would not give details about which agencies work on the insurance business and how they will be affected.

Liverpool Victoria is the eighth biggest direct mail spender in the UK, according to Nielsen Media Research. It spent &£22m in the year to June 2005.

The Bournemouth-based mutual insurance group is the UK’s largest friendly society with &£7.4bn under management and about 2.5 million customers and members. Its chief executive Malcolm Berryman left suddenly in November after six years in the job, but the company denied his decision to leave was linked to a change in strategy.

The society has been tipped as a likely candidate for demutualisation but it said at the time of Berryman’s departure that it was committed to remaining mutual.