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UK’s largest life insurer awarded Raising StandardsQuality Mark

Norwich Union is delighted to be one of the first companies tobe accredited with the highly prestigious Raising Standardsaccolade – the new symbol of quality, clarity and service forthe life insurance industry.

The new scheme is designed to instil greater consumer confidencein the life insurance industry and deliver tangible benefits toconsumers by ensuring that they have a better and clearerunderstanding of the products they are buying.

Greater clarity and comparability of informationthrough:

• Simpler and clearer key features and illustrations
• Simpler and clearer post sale information
• More informative annual statements

Appropriateness of the products purchased through:

• Extending the cooling off period for most products to 30days
• New layouts of product key features and illustrations to alloweasier comparison of products
• A first class complaints handling procedure

Better service through:

• More contact information to allow customers to get in touchwhen and however it suits them
• A regular customer satisfaction survey to ensure service meetsthe benchmark for accreditation

Norwich Union has made a multi-million pound investment in orderto attain Quality Mark accreditation. More than 20 informationtechnology systems and 500 items of Norwich Union literature havebeen changed which gives an indication of the sheer scale of theproject.

Norwich Union will complete the introduction of the new RaisingStandards quality mark on literature by December 3 2001.

Peter Hales, sales and marketing director at Norwich Union said:“We are delighted to have been awarded the Raising Standardsquality mark. The commitment and investment we have made to reachthe high standards required have been considerable. We see this isa major step forward for the company, the industry and mostimportantly for the consumer”.

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Notes to Editors

• CGU plc and Norwich Union plc merged on 30 May 2000 to createCGNU plc, the UK’s largest insurance group and one of thetop-five insurers in Europe with substantial positions in othermarkets around the world, making it the world’s sixthlargest insurer based on gross worldwide premiums.
• CGNU’s principal business activities are long-termsavings, fund management and general insurance, with worldwidepremium income and retail investment sales from ongoing businessof over £27 billion and assets under management of more than £200billion as at June 30 2001.
• From October 2000, the combined life and pensions, generalinsurance and retail fund management businesses in the UK operateunder the Norwich Union brand, while the institutional investmentbusiness operates under the Morley Fund Management brand.
• Norwich Union’s news releases are available on thissite
• A selection of images are available from the CGNU Newscastsite at www.newscast.co.uk
• An ISDN facility is available for studio quality interviews.Call the press office on 08703 666878

For media enquiries on life and pensions call 08703 666873
For all other enquiries call 08703 666868

Press office contacts:
James Evans 08703 66 68 78 07790 487105
Louise Goffee 08703 66 68 70 07810 057362