The story
Founded by Carl von Thieme and Wilhelm von Finck on Feb 5, 1890, in Berlin.1
Foundation
Allianz AG was founded in Munich in 1889, but started its activities in Berlin on 5 February 1890, by the then-director of the Munich Reinsurance Company Carl von Thieme (a native of Erfurt, whose father was the director of the Thuringia insurance company) and Wilhelm von Finck (co-owner of the Merck Finck & Co. Bank). The joint company was listed in Berlin's trade register under the name Allianz Versicherungs-Aktiengesellschaft. The company was established with a start-up capital of 4 million marks. The first Allianz products were marine and accident policies that were initially sold only in Germany. However, in 1893, Allianz opened its first international branch office in London, distributing marine insurance coverage to German clientele looking for coverage abroad.
In 1900, the company became the first insurer to obtain a license to distribute corporate policies. In 1904, Paul von Naher took over the sole leadership of the company, as it moved into the US and other markets. Markets entered by 1914 included the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, France, the Scandinavian countries and the Baltic states, and Allianz had become the largest maritime insurer in Germany. The company suffered an early disaster in expansion when the 1906 San Francisco earthquake caused the company to sustain 300,000 marks in losses. In 1905, the company acquired Fides Insurance Company, a firm that had innovated the first form of home invasion insurance. Other places expanded into during the 1910s and 1920s included Palestine, Cyprus, Iraq, China, the Dutch Indies (now Indonesia), Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and Siam (now Thailand).
20th-century developments
In 1905, the company began to offer fire insurance, and in 1911 it began to sell machinery breakdown policies. Allianz remained the only company in the world that sold machine breakdown insurance until 1924. In 1918, it began offering automobile insurance as well through a joint venture called Kraft Versicherungs-AG. In 1921, Von Naher died and was succeeded by Kurt Schmitt. The company would begin to offer life insurance as of 1922, becoming Europe's largest offerer of the policies by the end of the 1920s.
In 1927, Allianz merged with Stuttgarter Verein Versicherung AG, which was then the leading accident and third-party liability insurer. Two years later, it acquired the insurance businesses of Favag, a large German insurer that declared bankruptcy due to the onset of the Great Depression. Expansion of the company then slowed until 1938 at which point it employed more than 24,000 people. Christian Stadler wrote of the history of Allianz that it "shows how important it is to diversify into related areas to hedge against the risk of fundamental changes in markets and economies".
Allianz was a major supporter of the Nazi movement, and Hitler's first cabinet included the head of Allianz as a cabinet member. Allianz provided massive financial support at a crucial time for the expansion of the NSDAP. On 30 June 1933, Kurt Schmitt, Allianz Director-General, was appointed Economics Minister for Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler and became an SS honorary member. He was a supporter of Aryanization and pushing out Jews from public life in Germany. He later received various honours from the SS including the Deaths Head and Iron Cross.
From 1933 to 1945, Allianz insured sub-organizations of the NSDAP and opened up new areas of business as the German Reich expanded. Among other things, the customer base was expanded through the takeover of Jewish insurance houses as part of the Aryanization initiative (seizing Jewish businesses to put in non-Jewish hands). Allianz profited directly from deportations. From 1940 onwards, Allianz insured SS armaments factories, prisoners' barracks, material stores and vehicle fleets in concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Dachau. Allianz employees regularly inspected concentration camps.
During World War II, the Berlin headquarters of Allianz were destroyed by Allied bombing raids. Following the end of the war in 1945, Hans Heß became head of the company, and Allianz shifted its headquarters to Munich in 1949 due to the split between East and West Germany. Heß only held the position until 1948, when he was replaced by Hans Goudefroy. In 1956, Allianz became the first major European Insurance company to install a mainframe computer, taking delivery of a IBM 650 which provided cost savings within three years of delivery. After World War II, global business activities were gradually resumed. Allianz opened an office in Paris in 1959 and started repurchasing stakes in former subsidiaries in Italy and Austria. In 1971, Wolfgang Schieren became the head of the company.
These expansions were followed in the 1970s by the establishment of business in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain, Brazil and the United States. In 1986, Allianz acquired Cornhill Insurance in London, and the purchase of a stake in Riunione Adriatica di Sicurtà (RAS) in Milan, strengthened its presence in western and southern Europe in the 1980s.
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In 1990, Allianz started an expansion into eight eastern European countries by establishing a presence in Hungary. In the same decade, Allianz also acquired Fireman's Fund, an insurer in the United States, which was followed by the purchase of Assurances Générales de France. These acquisitions were followed by the expansion into Asia with several joint ventures and acquisitions in China and South Korea and the acquisition of Australia's Manufacturers Mutual Insurance. Around this time, Allianz expanded its asset management business as well by purchasing asset management companies in California. In 1999, Allianz purchased investment management firm PIMCO for approximately US$3.3 billion.
21st-century developments
In April 2001, Allianz agreed to acquire the 80 per cent of Dresdner Bank that it did not already own, for US$20 billion. As part of the transaction, Allianz agreed to sell its 13.5 per cent stake in HypoVereinsbank to Munich Re and to acquire Munich Re's 40 per cent stake in Allianz Leben. Following the completion of the acquisition, Allianz and Dresdner Bank combined their asset management activities by forming Allianz Global Investors.
In 2002, Michael Diekmann succeeded Henning Schulte-Noelle as CEO. In June 2006, Allianz announced the layoff of 7,280 employees, about 4 percent of its worldwide workforce at the time, as part of a restructuring program aimed at raising profitability ("Allianz Sustainability P&C and Life"). The reductions comprised 5,000 staff members at Allianz insurance operations and 2,480 at Dresdner Bank. In the same month, Allianz announced that its Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein investment banking operation would be renamed as simply Dresdner Kleinwort.
In September 2005, Allianz announced that it would convert its holding company into a societas europaea. The conversion was made in conjunction with Allianz's acquisition of 100 per cent control of its principal Italian subsidiary Riunione Adriatica di Sicurtà for around US$7 billion. The conversion to an SE was completed on 13 October 2006. The Allianz Group also simplified its brand strategy from 2006 and their previous emblem was replaced by the current combination mark. By 2008 the company was Europe's largest insurer. In 2007, it was a founder member of the Hedge Fund Standards Board, which sets a voluntary code of standards of best practice endorsed by its members.
On 31 August 2008, it was announced that Allianz had agreed to sell 60.2 per cent of Dresdner Bank to Commerzbank for €9.8 billion (US$14.4 billion), with an agreement that Commerzbank would acquire the remainder of Dresdner Bank by the end of 2009. After renegotiations, it was announced in November 2008 that Commerzbank would acquire the 100% ownership of Dresdner Bank earlier (12 January 2009). The sale price was lowered to 5.5 billion Euro. Shortly after the transaction completed, Commerzbank was partially nationalized by the German government to save it from bankruptcy. Allianz currently retains a stake of around 14% in Commerzbank.
Allianz X, founded in 2013 and headed by Nazim Cetin, is Allianz's technology investment fund. In August 2015, a consortium led by Allianz acquired German motorway service station group Tank & Rast for an undisclosed sum believed to be in the region of €3.5 billion. In April 2018, TH Real Estate and Allianz partnered to provide £100m in debt finance to developers YardNine, for the development of 80 Fenchurch Street, a 240,000 sq ft office development in London. In October 2020, Allianz was named the world's top insurance brand by the Interbrand's Best Global Brands Ranking.
On 1 August 2021, Allianz disclosed that the United States Department of Justice had launched a probe into Allianz to determine the role that executives had played in the loss of billions of euros from Allianz Global's Structured Alpha Funds. In September 2021, the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority launched its own probe. On September 30, 2021, it was reported that asset management chief Jacqueline Hunt would step down as part of a shake up that followed the investigations into the losses, staying on as a consultant to Bäte.
On 17 May 2022, Allianz SE has agreed to pay $6 billion in the U.S. fraud case due to the collapse of its Structured Alpha funds during the COVID-19 pandemic. In April 2023, Allianz put its 5% stake in fintech company N26 up for sale, with N26 valued at $3 billion (€2.7 billion). Meanwhile, N26 was valued at $9 billion at its last funding round in October 2021.
In December 2024, Allianz announced a withdrawal of its offer to acquire at least 51% of Singapore's Income Insurance which cost around $1.63 billion. This offer was initially put forward in July 2024 but later sparked criticism in Singapore as it concerned that it would detract from the mission of providing an affordable insurance for lower-income workers. The withdrawal came after the Singapore Government intervened to prevent the deal.
In June 2025, Allianz was included in a report by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese of companies supporting Israel's genocide in Gaza. Allianz rejected the accusation and maintained that a company cannot be held responsible for the actions of a sovereign government through lawful participation in global financial markets.
On 12 March 2026, Sunlife and Allianz began considering bids for HSBC Holdings' insurance unit, HSBC Life. A sale process was initiated in March, with non-binding bids materialising soon. In July 2026, HSBC announced that it would sell HSBC Life to Allianz for $2.09 Billion.
From Wikipedia’s article on Allianz, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.8