Significant growth for Police Mutual group

Funds under management reached £884 million, increasing from £840m at the end of 2013, for the 140-year old friendly society, which runs on a not-for-profit basis from its headquarters in Lichfield.

It currently has around 200,000 customers among police officers, staff and their families and has seen a 26 per cent hike in income from new home and motor insurance policies, driving overall new business growth to 19 per cent. The business employs 280 people at its offices in Lichfield, Liverpool and Birmingham.

Following a takeover last year, the group now includes Forces Financial, which has around 180,000 UK police and military customers as well as 16 military branches in Germany and Cyprus. It added £7.5m to the group's income in 2014.

The organisation's investment fund continued its strong performance with a gross return of 8.1 per cent in 2014 – bringing the cumulative gross return over a five-year period to 41.9 per cent.

Over three years, Police Mutual says its performance has added over £100m more for its members than if they had invested their money in the average cash ISA.

Stephen Mann, chief executive at Police Mutual, said: "2014 was an exceptional year for Police Mutual, with records for new business broken again. Our investment in people, capability and in developing our members' business continues to get results and the level of change successfully delivered last year sets us up well for 2015.

"More importantly, this business performance reflects the value of our not-for-profit philosophy and enables us to offer more to our members and support the work of the Police Service."

Police Mutual is the sponsor of the annual Police Bravery Awards run by the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW), the staff association that represents all 131,000 police officers up to and including the rank of Chief Inspector.