18th August 2008

Local Alzheimer’s branch gets surprise windfall from RIAS Insurance

Hundreds of members of staff at RIAS, one of Bournemouth’s biggest employers, have been regularly swapping their suits for jeans and t-shirts in order to raise money for a very worthy cause. The £1 per person staff donations, given in exchange for taking part in the insurance company’s ‘dress down days’, have now mounted up to a considerable sum, and the local branch of the national charity The Alzheimer’s Society, has benefited as a result.

Mrs Win Armand Smith of the Alzheimer’s Society Bournemouth and Christchurch office visited the RIAS headquarters in Bournemouth to accept the cheque for £12,744 which was handed over personally by RIAS Managing Director Janet Connor. “Please let it be known how extremely grateful we are for this wonderful donation,” says Win, “I feel rather overwhelmed by it, as it was so unexpected and literally came out of the blue! We shall use it for the benefit of Alzheimer’s clients living in this area and it will come in very handy with a new initiative we’ve been working on to get people with dementia out of their homes for active and social pursuits such as shopping or visiting a garden centre. Alzheimer’s can be extremely isolating for people, so socialisation is really important. Another thing we do is hold monthly lunches, and with these funds we can also look at increasing these to twice monthly events.”

RIAS Managing Director Janet Connor, commented: “The ‘dress down day’ scheme is a simple but very effective way of fund raising for worthy causes, and everyone gets involved. In fact it’s not unusual to see senior management doing their bit, standing in reception rattling their collection buckets. We are very happy indeed that the funds we have donated will stay locally, which is what we prefer as it is our company policy to support local charities.”

The Bournemouth & Christchurch branch of the Alzheimer’s Society is now amalgamated with Poole and will be known as the East Dorset branch, operating from Highcliffe almost to Durdle Door. RIAS, which specialises in providing home insurance, car insurance and travel insurance for the over 50s, has learned that funds may also be used to raise awareness of Alzheimer’s in the area, and to overturn the misconception that Alzheimer’s only affects people over 70. In fact there are 400-500 people under the age of 65 with dementia who live locally, which is the highest concentration in the UK.

Anyone wishing to volunteer their time, or make a donation, should contact Win Armand Smith at Win.ArmandSmith@alzheimers.org.ukor call her on 01202 309084.

Janet Connor, Managing Director of RIAS is available for further comment and interview. To arrange an interview with, or photography of, Janet, please call Sadie Sheppard on 01202 254489 or e-mail ssheppard@rias.co.uk

About RIAS

• RIAS was established in 1992 and is a specialist provider of insurance products for the over 50s age group

• RIAS negotiates with a panel of insurers to secure competitive, value for money products

• RIAS has over 970,000 customers and employs over 1,200 people across two locations - Bournemouth and Belfast

• In July 2007 RIAS’ home insurance contents and buildings policies received four ‘Best Buy’ awards from Which? magazine

• In December 2007 RIAS won the ‘Personal Lines Broker of the year” award at the Insurance Times awards

RIAS is part of Fortis (Insurance UK), a leading provider of award-winning personal and commercial lines insurance solutions in the UK and the 2007 British Insurance Awards 'General Insurer of the Year'. The insurer's successful customer-centric strategy has been founded on aligning its activities to how customers want to buy insurance, combined with delivering high quality products, manufactured at costs better than market norms.

Fortis's unique multi-distribution capability enables it to deliver products face-to-face, by phone (inbound and outbound), over the Internet and via SMS technology. Aligning its business activities with its partners' general insurance strategies enables Fortis to offer end-to-end white label capabilities in product development, marketing, campaign management, sales, fulfilment and claims - providing a seamless integration with partner brands.

Insuring in excess of 6.7 million customers and working with a range of partners, Fortis is recognised for delivering consistent and high-quality customer experiences. It employs 2,901 people as of 31/12/07 with a head office based in Eastleigh and others in Belfast, Bournemouth, Gloucester, Haywards Heath, Redditch, and Stoke-on-Trent. In 2007, its profit before tax and interest (excluding impact of weather related events) was £92.2 million and its GWP was 757.8 million.

For further information please contact:
Sadie Sheppard RIAS Public Relations 01202 254489 ssheppard@rias.co.uk

Local Alzheimer’s branch gets surprise windfall from RIAS Insurance

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