New logo: Coface

Coface, an abbreviation of Compagnie Française d'Assurance pour le Commerce Extérieur, is a leading capital insurance company, head-quartered in France. Yesterday, January 21, it unveiled a new corporate identity and a new tagline, "for safer trade". The visual identity was developed by W&Cie.

A new symbol has been created from the first two letters in the company name, a C and a truncated O. It expresses both the relationship between Coface and its clients as well as an infinity symbol.
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New logo: Gjensidige

Gjensidige is a major Norwegian insurance company, tracing its roots back two centuries to rural fire insurers, the first of which was founded in 1816. In addition to its home market, it now also has activities in Denmark, Sweden and the Baltic states. Yesterday, October 24, Gjensidige previewed a new corporate identity, created by Dinamo Design in Oslo.

Gjensidige has long used an image of a watchman as company symbol, first introduced in 1932 as an advertisement figure. He was last redesigned in 2005, when the company changed its name from Gjensidige NOR, having merged its banking subsidiary into DnB NOR a few years earlier.

In the new version he has been made into a silhouette, enclosed by a circle with two colours divided by his walking stick.

A new communicative style has been developed, focused on the needs of costumers rather than products. It is warm and friendly, with a set of colourful figures and icons and a "handwritten" typeface.
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New logo: AIG

The insurance group AIG, or American International Group, was one of the companies that gained worldwide attention during the 2008 financial crisis when the Federal Reserve had to step in to ensure its liquidity. After that, the AIG name had been extensively dragged through the mud and some of the restructured AIG properties were rebranded as Chartis. Recently, however, management apparently decided that the AIG name was rehabilitated and have made moves back to that name. Yesterday, October 2, a new AIG logo was unveiled.

The new logo features a lighter shade of blue and a sans serif typeface that is more up to today's standards. It will apparently be rolled out later in the fall as it replaces brands such as Chartis and SunAmerica.
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New logo: PlusUltra Seguros

Until recently, Groupama Seguros was the Spanish subsidiary of French insurance group Groupama. Earlier this year, it was acquired by Spanish insurer Catalana Occidente. Yesterday, October 1, Groupama Seguros changed its name to Plus Ultra Seguros as a result of the ownership change.

Plus Ultra is an historic brand that has been dormant for some years. The company says it has a history dating back to 1887. The triangle in the new logo is inspired by triangle logos used by PlusUltra in the past. A press release says the new brand looks "modern and powerful from a visual standpoint", while also containing clear references to history.
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New logo: PZU

PZU, or Powszechny Zakład Ubezpieczeń, is a major Polish insurance group with a long history, claiming 1803 as its foundation year. Yesterday, May 10, it unveiled a new corporate identity that is said to reflect modernisation within the company. The new logo launches tomorrow, May 12, and will then be gradually introduced in corporate communication and PZU's many branch offices.

The new logo is said to be a return to the historical circular mark, which the company says was introduced in 1952 and used until the 1990s, but it also symbolises "the simplification of procedures, care for the costumer and a modern approach". A framing device to be used in advertising has been created by cutting two brackets from the blue ring.
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New logo: Direct Line Group

RBS Insurance, the insurance division of the Royal Bank of Scotland, is about to rebrand as the Direct Line Group as RBS are planning to leave the insurance business. Trade press noted that the company had changed its legal name to Direct Line Insurance Group plc about a week ago, taking the name of their most prominent brand, and that they had also registered the logo seen above. The rebrand was confirmed by RBS today.

The clever new mark shows a multicoloured ribbon (a line, perhaps?) forming a shape that contains an "invisible" arrow (direct?).

The Direct Line brand and its red phone will remain unchanged, as will the group's other brands, like Churchill, Privilege and NIG (which got a new corporate identity last year).
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New logo: Humanis

Humanis is a new French insurance company within "social protection" - pensions, health care and social insurance - formed on January 26 with the merger of two major companies within the field, Novalis Taitbout and (the old) Humanis. The new identity was also revealed last month and created by Bocékozi, part of Groupe Chaïkana.

The name Humanis signals the company's commitment to put people in the center. Humanity and commitment is also reflected in the wordmark, which resembles a signature, an image of human commitment. The company symbol is a red square with a large smile, expressing the fulfillment and spontaneity of life.
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New logo: State Farm

The major American insurance company State Farm, one of the 50 largest companies in the US, announced yesterday, December 15, that it was going to phase in a new corporate identity from January 2, as it celebrates its 90th anniversary. This replaces a symbol that has been essentially unchanged since it was introduced in the 1950s. The new corporate identity was created by Chermayeff & Geismar, who simplified the classic logo by removing the words and separating the ovals.

The current State Farm logo is one of the oldest corporate logos still in use by a major American corporation. According to American trademark designs it was designed in 1953 by a forgotten firm called Whitaker-Guernsey Studio and registered in 1956. It was also a simplification of a previous symbol that included a car, a cornucopia and a fireman's cap rather than the actual words "auto", "life" and "fire". In recent years, the logo has often been used with a wordmark, as seen in the example below.
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New logo: Lalux

La Luxembourgeoise is Luxembourg's oldest insurance company, founded in 1920. Last month, it shortened its name to "Lalux", which has been used as a shorthand for some time, as it moves into new headquarters. The symbol from the old logo is kept, but is put in a more modern context.
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New logo: VGZ

VGZ, a major Dutch health insurer, has introduced a new corporate identity. This is part of a consolidation which sees VGZ replacing two other brands, Trias and SIZ, owned by the same company. After the changes, VGZ will have 2.2 million policyholders.

The new logo is supposed to be shaped like a flower with a little curl on the letter G, both aspects representing growth and development, while the interlocking petals represent cooperation between clients, providers and the insurer.
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New logo: Cigna

The Connecticut-based health services company Cigna launched a rebrand campaign on Monday, September 19, as it changes its business model to focus less on corporations and more on consumers in a changing healthcare market. This includes giving up its 18-year-old "Tree of Life" logo for a pictogram where the the costumer is literally in the center.

Although Cigna have provided the full color version seen above, they seem to use single colour versions extensively as well.

Cigna's previous logo, used from 1993.


The "Tree of Life" design was presented in 1993, created at Landor Associates in San Francisco under the leadership of Lindon Leader. The reasoning behind the 1993 rebrand shared some similarities with the current, as it was thought at the time that Cigna's original logo didn't convey "care" properly. This rebrand also brought the entire company together under one symbol. The "Tree of Life" on a softened teal square was based on a New England quilt from the 18th century.
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New logo: Kemper Corporation

This week, the American insurance and financial servies company Unitrin changed its name to Kemper Corporation, taking the name of its Kemper insurance division. Unitrin bought Kemper's personal lines and casualty insurance business in 2002, and last year they also bought the full name rights, which had until then been owned by Lumbermens Mutual Casualty Company.

The new corporate identity was created with Lippincott.

"The Kemper “K”, composed of two overlapping triangles, is designed to represent the Kemper qualities of being trustworthy and attuned to its customers’ needs. The gold color reflects the warmth and approachability of the Kemper brand and its team members." - press release

Unitrin logo.

The Kemper division will be renamed Kemper Preferred, while the other divisions, Unitrin Specialty and Unitrin Direct, will apparently not be renamed, at least not for now.

A press release about the namechange was published on August 15, while the renaming officially took place yesterday, August 25.

Press release (archive)
4-traders
New York Times Media Decoder
Bloomberg Businessweek

New logo: Mutual & Federal

As it tries to regain lost market share and connect with younger costumers, the South African short term insurance company Mutual & Federal launched a new corporate identity this month.

Tracing its history all the way back to 1831, Mutual & Federal got its current name in 1970s when the Old Mutual insurance group became involved in the company. Today Mutual & Federal is a sudsidiary of Old Mutual, and the new logo adopts the same typeface as the Old Mutual logo. The green colour, which was also present in the previous logo, is also shared with Old Mutual.

Previous logo.

The previous logo contained a silhouette of Table Mountain that overlooks Cape Town. Replacing it allows Mutual & Federal to create a brand identity that can be used across Southern Africa, as the company also has activities in Botswana and Namibia.

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New logo: FBTO

Last Monday, June 20, the Dutch insurance company FBTO launched a new brand strategy and a new corporate identity. The logo was revealed in a cermony where a new sign was uncovered on top of FBTO's headquarters in Leeuwarden. Behind the new corporate identity stands Amsterdam branding agency VBAT.

Previous logo.

In the new logo, the O has been coloured in all the colours of the rainbow, which the company's describes as the letter "literally coming to life". It should stand for "your own choice, very close, very direct". The brand positioning talks about living freely and not worrying about risks in one's life.
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New logo: Empire Life

The Canadian life insurance company Empire Life unveiled a new visual identity on Thursday, June 16. The new symbol is made up of what is reportedly three waterdrops, representing integrity, care and partnership.

Previous logo.

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New logo: NIG

The trading name NIG stands for The National Insurance and Guarantee Corporation Ltd, an insurance company in the United Kingdom specialised in business insurance. It is a subsidiary of The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).

Recently, it revealed a new logo which removes the RBS "daisy wheel" symbol which has been a part of the NIG logo since April 2006. It has been reported that RBS are planning to sell of their insurance division, and this makes it necessary to remove references to RBS in affected logos. NIG has also gone through an extensive restructuring of its regional organisation.

The logo contains a sharper wordmark in white in a slanted square. The purple colour and the triangle element in the I from the previous logo are carried over and revitalised.

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New logo: Cincinnati Insurance Companies

The Cincinnati Financial Corporation is an insurance company in Cincinnati, Ohio, which uses the brand name "Cincinnati Insurance Companies". It recently revealed a new logo, which replaces its image of Cincinatti skylines with an image of a bridge.

The typography is also altered from an bold all-caps Times typeface to a thin typeface from the Eras family, also in all-caps. The company has previously used the Eras family in its communciation.

The new logo was reportedly revealed last Friday, April 29, at the company's annual meeting. A press release issued yesterday, May 2, offered the following explanation:

A new company logo we introduced at our meeting celebrates the momentum we are building by expanding our operations, increasing efficiencies, stepping up our expertise and recommitting to ethical values. As we start the next chapter of our 60-year history, we are committed to improve on our traditional strengths and create new ones that enhance our relationships with our agency customers and add value for shareholders."

Previous logo.

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New logo: Standard Life

Standard Life is a UK financial services company, focused on "long term savings and investment". This February 7, the company revealed a new visual identity and a new tagline, "The Way Forward".

According to Standard Life, this is the first change in visual identity since 1993. The new logo keeps a yellow triangle from the old logo and places it after the company name, optimistically pointing forward and upward.

The new look was created by London design agency JKR. It has been rolled out across the company since February 7.
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