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Home / Types of Life Insurance Policies / - Standard Life, Life Insurance Company
Standard Life was established in 1825, and has its head office in Edinburgh .
Standard Life currently employs around 7,5000 employees in Edinburgh and over 12,000 worldwide.
Its Canadian branch was opened in 1833 and its Irish operations opened in 1838. This substantially remained the structure of the group until 1996, when it opened a branch in Frankfurt , Germany .
Standard Life Group comprises of five main areas: Standard Life Assurance Company, Standard Life Bank, Standard Life Investments, Standard Life Healthcare, and Standard Life International.
Current assets under management are around £910 billion. Standard Life has in excess of seven and a half million customers worldwide, with five million in the UK . Of these, just over two and a half million are with profits members.
On the 15 th September 2006, Standard Life became a proprietary company and floated on the London stock exchange.
NEWS
Diabetes: Smoking linked highlighted
13 December 2007 10:54:35
Diabetes sufferers concerned about their life insurance or critical illness prospects may be causing more harm by smoking.
Scientists from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland have completed a wide-scale review of existing research suggesting a link between smoking and the incidence of glucose abnormalities.
They outlined evidence that smokers have a 44 per cent higher risk of developing type-two diabetes, while people with a heavy habit increase their chances by another fifth.
Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers noted that "the relevant question should no longer be whether this association exists but rather whether this established association is causal".
They argued that there may be non-causal reasons for the observed link as smoking is often associated with other unhealthy behaviours that encourage weight gain and/or diabetes, such as lack of physical activity and high alcohol intake.
"Considering the consistent finding of increased diabetes incidence associated with active cigarette smoking across a large number of studies, we believe that there is no need for further cohort studies to test this hypothesis," they concluded.
Some of the complications of diabetes include blindness, heart disease, kidney failure and loss of limbs – which can ultimately cause the loss of independent existence.
Direct Life and Pensions Services Ltd are one of the UK's leading providers of life insurance, term life assurance, mortgage protection, critical illness and life insurance advice online
Heart hormones used to treat cancer
27 February 2008 17:23:00
Hormones produced by the heart have been used to cure cancers in mice.
The discovery could pave the way to new human cancer treatments - which may affect life insurance policies for people suffering from the disease.
Scientists in America claim to have eliminated human pancreatic cancer in more than three-quarters of mice treated with the hormones and eliminated human breast cancer in two-thirds of the mice, reports Medical News Today.
A private biotechnology company is reported to be raising funds to begin human trials of the treatment.
The pancreatic cancers that were not cured were reduced to less than ten per cent of their original size.
None of the mice died of cancer and none suffered any side effects.
Dr David Vesely, from the James A Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa, will present his research at the Experimental Biology 2008 conference in San Diego, on April 9th.
Hormone therapy is used in the UK to treat breast, prostate and womb cancers.
Direct Life and Pensions Services Ltd are one of the UK's leading providers of life insurance, term life assurance, mortgage protection, critical illness and life insurance advice online
Broccoli could lower prostate cancer risk
22 August 2007 14:37:21
New research has suggested that eating broccoli and cauliflower could be another form of life insurance, after it was linked to a decrease in the risk of prostate cancer.
While they won't provide the same level of protection and peace of mind as a life cover policy or critical illness insurance, the vegetables were found to lower the likelihood of developing an aggressive form of the disease.
Researchers from the US National Cancer Institute and Cancer Care Ontario examined the effect of dark green and cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and cauliflower on a group of patients already diagnosed with prostate cancer.
The team - whose results are published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute - found that the risk of developing an aggressive form of the disease decreased by 52 per cent when a participants was served cauliflower weekly.
A similar portion of broccoli reduced the risk by 45 per cent.
Dr Victoria Kirsch, the study leader, commented: "Aggressive prostate cancer is biologically virulent and associated with poor prognosis.
"If the association that we observed is ultimately found to be causal, a possible means to reduce the burden of this disease may be primary prevention through increased consumption of broccoli, cauliflower, and possibly spinach."
Prostate cancer accounts for nearly one in four of all male cancer diagnoses in the UK.
13 December 2007 10:54:35
Diabetes sufferers concerned about their life insurance or critical illness prospects may be causing more harm by smoking.
Scientists from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland have completed a wide-scale review of existing research suggesting a link between smoking and the incidence of glucose abnormalities.
They outlined evidence that smokers have a 44 per cent higher risk of developing type-two diabetes, while people with a heavy habit increase their chances by another fifth.
Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers noted that "the relevant question should no longer be whether this association exists but rather whether this established association is causal".
They argued that there may be non-causal reasons for the observed link as smoking is often associated with other unhealthy behaviours that encourage weight gain and/or diabetes, such as lack of physical activity and high alcohol intake.
"Considering the consistent finding of increased diabetes incidence associated with active cigarette smoking across a large number of studies, we believe that there is no need for further cohort studies to test this hypothesis," they concluded.
Some of the complications of diabetes include blindness, heart disease, kidney failure and loss of limbs – which can ultimately cause the loss of independent existence.
Direct Life and Pensions Services Ltd are one of the UK's leading providers of life insurance, term life assurance, mortgage protection, critical illness and life insurance advice online
27 February 2008 17:23:00
Hormones produced by the heart have been used to cure cancers in mice.
The discovery could pave the way to new human cancer treatments - which may affect life insurance policies for people suffering from the disease.
Scientists in America claim to have eliminated human pancreatic cancer in more than three-quarters of mice treated with the hormones and eliminated human breast cancer in two-thirds of the mice, reports Medical News Today.
A private biotechnology company is reported to be raising funds to begin human trials of the treatment.
The pancreatic cancers that were not cured were reduced to less than ten per cent of their original size.
None of the mice died of cancer and none suffered any side effects.
Dr David Vesely, from the James A Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa, will present his research at the Experimental Biology 2008 conference in San Diego, on April 9th.
Hormone therapy is used in the UK to treat breast, prostate and womb cancers.
Direct Life and Pensions Services Ltd are one of the UK's leading providers of life insurance, term life assurance, mortgage protection, critical illness and life insurance advice online
22 August 2007 14:37:21
New research has suggested that eating broccoli and cauliflower could be another form of life insurance, after it was linked to a decrease in the risk of prostate cancer.
While they won't provide the same level of protection and peace of mind as a life cover policy or critical illness insurance, the vegetables were found to lower the likelihood of developing an aggressive form of the disease.
Researchers from the US National Cancer Institute and Cancer Care Ontario examined the effect of dark green and cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and cauliflower on a group of patients already diagnosed with prostate cancer.
The team - whose results are published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute - found that the risk of developing an aggressive form of the disease decreased by 52 per cent when a participants was served cauliflower weekly.
A similar portion of broccoli reduced the risk by 45 per cent.
Dr Victoria Kirsch, the study leader, commented: "Aggressive prostate cancer is biologically virulent and associated with poor prognosis.
"If the association that we observed is ultimately found to be causal, a possible means to reduce the burden of this disease may be primary prevention through increased consumption of broccoli, cauliflower, and possibly spinach."
Prostate cancer accounts for nearly one in four of all male cancer diagnoses in the UK.