About Us

Swinton Group is the largest high street insurance broker with branches covering 90% of the UK. We offer a unique customer proposition of local presence and Call Centre operations, with over 580 branches across the country, 3 Call Centres based in Halifax, Manchester and Norwich, 4 Specialist Insurance Units and a Head Office. We employ over 4000 people in a variety of roles and locations. Our aim is to find the best UK insurance deal from a panel of top insurers for all of our customers. We deal with a variety of insurances from private cars, to hotels, to pubs and even kittens.

Early days

In the late 1950s, more people were buying cars than ever before - but finding car insurance wasn't all that easy. That began to change when Swinton opened its first branch in Salford and started a new way to buy insurance. The company grew rapidly through the 1960s as more customers recommended us to their friends and colleagues. That gave us the confidence to be the first insurance broker to advertise on TV - which led to even greater success.Introducing technology.

In the 1980s we made the bold step (for the time!) to computerise our quotation system and customer records. With the efficiency this brought, we expanded our branch network beyond the north west and right across the UK.

In the early 1990s, we became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sun Alliance (now Royal & Sun Alliance)

Into the 21st Century

In May 2001, Swinton was bought by La Mutuelle Du Mans Assurance (MMA), a French insurer. This led to us becoming even stronger, with a new corporate identity, new uniforms for all our advisors and a new open plan environment in all branches.

In May 2002 we bought Colonnade Insurance Brokers retail business and the acquisition of the Budget retail branch network in August 2006 added a further 90 branches nationwide and meant that we had acquired a total of 250 brokers in the past five years alone.

Business Today

In January 2009, we continued our approach of growing through acquisition by purchasing Equity Insurance (part of the IAG group). This increased our branch network by an additional 91 branches and has firmly placed us as leaders in the UK’s personal lines insurance market.

We were named Personal Lines Broker of the Year at The British Insurance Awards 2008. As the UK’s leading high street insurance retailer, we scooped the accolade at an awards ceremony held at the Royal Albert Hall, two months after announcing record end of year profits and our seventh year of consecutive growth.

We were praised for our personal approach to customer service and successful strategy of integrating online growth and call centre support with our extensive network of high street branches. Over the past year we have successfully demonstrated how we respond to the demands of our customers for products relevant to their needs coupled with top quality service.