We’re very proud of our origins, which go back to 1869 with the creation of the Government Life Insurance Office in New Zealand. We reached Australia in 1990 as TOWER and with the acquisition of recognised life industry brands such as Adriatic Life, Friends Provident, FAI Life, PrefSure and InsuranceLine we quickly and firmly established ourselves as a key player in the Australian life insurance market.
Over the past five years we have grown our inforce premiums at a compound annual growth rate of 15%, delivered compound annual profit growth of 22%, established a team of 1,100 people strong, won an enviable list of awards and with a market share of 12% we are ranked third in the market – on Life business alone.
In 2006, a formal demerger between the New Zealand and Australian businesses of TOWER Limited saw us listing separately on the Australian Securities Exchange as TOWER Australia Group Limited (TOWER Australia).The Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company, Limited ('Dai-ichi Life'), one of Japan’s and the world’s major life insurance companies, became a cornerstone shareholder in TOWER Australia in 2008 when it acquired a 28% shareholding. And then in May 2011, following the completion of a Scheme of Arrangement, TOWER Australia became a wholly owned subsidiary of Dai-ichi Life and was removed from the Australian Securities Exchange.
On 1 June 2011 we renamed to become TAL. The name change signals an exciting new future for TAL as a part of Dai-ichi Life, and as Australia’s specialist life insurer strengthening and expanding our market position and the great offering we provide to over 2.5 million Australians.
And that’s just in the past twenty years. Imagine what we can do in the next.