ABOUT ECCLESIASTICAL
Website sponsor's promotional message
Ecclesiastical is no ordinary insurer. We were founded in 1887 by churchmen to offer insurance protection for the Church. Today we're a large, UK based financial services group with a difference.
We provide insurance and financial products and services for individuals, families, groups and organisations that care about their communities and the environments in which they live and work. As well as home, wedding and travel insurance, we offer a number of financial services to clergy and church people, such as financial advice, savings and investments, retirement planning, life assurance and protection. We also protect many of the nation's heritage buildings, schools, nurseries, charities and care homes through our specialist insurance products and services.
With our experience we understand the needs of the Church, to protect its heritage and people, as well as providing support and advice to those who deal with the day-to-day running of the churches.
At Ecclesiastical our customers are our main priority so if you're looking for a company that has great products and services combined with a social conscience, welcome to Ecclesiastical.
We also believe it's important to give something back to local communities, which is why we work closely with English Heritage and are a corporate sponsor of The Children's Society. We donate a significant proportion of our profits to charity. In fact, we're one of the top 20 companies in the UK for community contributions and UK charitable donations.*
Our reputation for settling claims is as important as the cover itself. We'll be there to support you through every step of the claims process and our philosophy is to treat each customer the way we'd like to be treated ourselves.
*Source: The Guide to UK Company Giving 2007/08, Directory of Social Change.
WILL YOUR INSURANCE COVER YOU SHOULD DISASTER STRIKE?
When it comes to protecting your church building, the most difficult part is to accurately assess the cost to restore it should the worst happen. This is even more difficult with ancient buildings. We have over 120 years experience in this area, which gives us unrivalled expertise. What's more we employ dedicated surveyors who provide a specialist insurance valuation service along with risk management advice including fire, security and health & safety.
Ecclesiastical's unique valuation service for ancient and Victorian churches of massive traditional construction is based on a repair/restoration cost rather than a full rebuilding cost (the usual basis for an insurance valuation) and all figures include architects', surveyors' and consulting engineers' fees and where applicable, VAT. We are one of the few companies to insure on this basis. This means you don't pay for the cost of completely rebuilding the church as our experience shows that following a fire, for example, the shell of the building is capable of restoration. Over the years we have dealt with a number of serious church fires where the cost of restoration has run into many millions.
A building does not have to be restored to its former specification. It may be possible that it can be rebuilt to look completely different or even rebuilt on an alternative site, however, this does not compromise the lengths to which we go to restore a building or replace the stolen or damaged items.
A 16th century wainscot chair was stolen from the parish of St Lawrence, Westbury-sub-Mendip. Ecclesiastical commissioned a company to produce the replica from English oak using traditional methods. It took 40 hours to make and assemble plus additional time on the decorative carving.
Please call us on 0845 777 3322 for further information on church, church hall or charity insurance, email us at churches@eigmail.com, visit www.ecclesiastical.com/churches or write to us at Ecclesiastical, Beaufort House, Brunswick Road, Gloucester, GL1 1JZ.
Ecclesiastical Insurance Office plc is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. It is also a member of the Association of British Insurers (ABI) and the Financial Ombudsman Service. Registered Number: 1718196.
FURTHER INFORMATION
You can find further information on the Ecclesiastical website and in the following documents (pdf format*):
Church Insurance Summary of Cover
Church Hall Insurance Summary of Cover
Charity Insurance Summary of Cover
*If you don't have a (free) Adobe Acrobat PDF viewer, you can get one from http://www.adobe.com/.
