Investing in our communities

Our Regional Community Committees support local charities in and around each of our three locations in the UK. They are voluntarily run by our employees on top of their usual roles and enabled us to distribute nearly £11,000 in 2021 to both national and local charities. This included care packages that were sent to local schools - voted for by our own people - as a thank you to hard-working teachers who continued to adapt under unprecedented circumstances.

NHS sleep pod donations

To show how grateful we are to the wonderful NHS staff we donated £5,000 towards two sleep pods - designed to give staff some well-deserved rest and relaxation during their shift. The pods were purchased by the Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and East & North Hertfordshire NHS Trust.

Rachel, Consultant Anaesthetist at Poole Hospital said:
"During a stressful and challenging year, the well-being of NHS staff has been vitally important. This generous donation has enabled the anaesthetic department to purchase an EnergyPod, giving us a much-needed quiet space to de-stress and rest after long shifts or if feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. It will be an amazing resource for years to come.” 

LV= Kidzone

Our longest partnership, LV= KidZone, was back in action for the 15th year to keep children safe along Bournemouth and Poole beaches during the 2021 summer months. The scheme, run by Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council, reunites lost children who are separated from parents, carers or guardians.

• 40,000 wristbands were handed out on our beaches
• 191 missing loved ones reunited with their families
• 42% of children lost were aged 5 or under
• It took on average 14 minutes to reunite a lost child with their loved ones

Cancer charity Maggie's

In 2021 53 of our people took part in Miles for Maggie’s - a challenge to walk, run or cycle as many miles as possible - and raised just over £3,000 with LV= Charity Matching included.

Charity Matching

We always encourage our people to fundraise for charities close to their hearts. To support their efforts, we match what their raise - pound for pound - through our Charity Matching scheme. This is capped at £500 per individual employee and at £1,000 for a team.

In 2021 our people raised just over £30,000 for 29 charities - an amazing achievement. Through the Charity Matching scheme, we topped this up by almost £12,500.

Pennies for charity

Another long-running and popular initiative is Pennies for Charity. We take the odd pennies in our people’s net salary and send these to a chosen charity. To show our ongoing support to Maggie’s, the home of cancer care, all of our pennies go to them.

Just over 61% of our workforce is signed up and in 2021 our donations totalled over £5,500.

We’ve been part of the scheme now for over a decade which is administered by Pennies from Heaven and are proud to win their 2022 Platinum Award.

To support members who were impacted financially by the pandemic, in March 2020 we introduced payment breaks and an option to reduce their cover for a cheaper premium. Since then we have continued to offer this support. In 2021 we waived over £34,000 in policy premiums for 92 members and have committed to maintaining this service for eligible members during 2022.

Member and policy benefits also continued to help and support members struggling financially and emotionally through our Member Support Fund, as well as the Legal Advice Line, LV= Doctor Services, Care Navigator and potential savings on general insurance products.

We want to create a lasting positive impact through a programme of activity, not only by way of donations, but by harnessing the power of our own people volunteering their time and fundraising.

Our people consistently get out and about in their community and donate to fundraising events hosted in their office. Many of them have also completed their own challenges like running the London Marathon.

Our people can take up to two days each year via our ‘time off to volunteer’ policy if they’d like to do something for their local community during their working week.