Gross Written Premium (1999):

Gross Written Premium (1999):
£108.3m

Year company established:
1901

UK head office:
Rivergate House
Blackbrook Park
Taunton
Somerset
TA1 2PE
tel: 01823 623 000
fax: 01823 623 050

e-mail:
cbd@wpahealth.co.uk

website:

Company history:
Western Provident Association (WPA) has been providing health insurance since 1901, always as a non-profit organisation and it continues to work for customers, not shareholders. Servicing more than 500,000 people and 7,000 companies it operates in the individual, family and corporate markets and has an income of £100m.

WPA's roots go back to 1901 when it was a voluntary hospitals' contributory scheme providing hospital cash plans, as they are known today. WPA continues to provide cash plans and also offers dental plans. In 1945 the company was inaugurated as the Bristol Hospital Fund offering private medical insurance. In 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999 WPA was voted top company for service among UK health insurers in independent surveys carried out by either Gallup or NOP research. WPA is the only health insurer to collect both the Gold Standard from the British Standards Institute for ISO 9001 country-wide compliance, and the government's Investors in People award in 1993, 1996 and 1999. Also the DTI named WPA as one of the UK's top 100 companies for best business practice

Chief officer:
Julian Stainton, CEO and managing director.

Biography:
Julian Stainton's career has, in many different facets, been concentrated in healthcare. Joining Parke-Davis Pharmaceuticals (later to be Warner Lambert) he rose to the position of marketing manger. Later he spent six years in London as board director in a major subsidiary of Young & Rubicam, one of the biggest and most successful advertising agencies in the US.

His entry into health insurance came when he was appointed sales and marketing director at Mutual of Omaha, a US health insurer headquartered in Bournemouth.

The opportunity to focus all this experience came when he was appointed managing director of WPA in 1987

UK branch offices:
two

UK staff:
300

UK general insurance agents:
over 2,000 brokers/IFAs Main classes of general insurance business: private medical insurance

Key general insurance personnel:
John Wright, finance director
Adrian Schuler, director of best practice
Rosalind Johnson, director/company secretary