War damage to branches outside London

It was not only London staff and branches that suffered from air attack, Plymouth's Norwich Union office had a near miss in the raids in March 1941 as later recalled by Wally Hirons:

"On the night of 20 March I was on duty with the chief clerk when we experienced by far the heaviest raid to date, involving 125 aircraft and lasting 4 1/2 hours. The following night the raid was even heavier involving 168 aircraft and lasting three hours. The whole of Westwell Street was ablaze up to the Norwich Union building.

"By then everyone had taken cover in a public shelter opposite. The manager crossed the road to the office and as he was away for some time, somebody went over to investigate. He was found with his foot stuck in a plaster ceiling, chopping away with an axe its timbers which had been set alight by the heat from the burning building next door. He prevented the fire getting a hold and the office was still standing next morning."

The staff magazine of Autumn 1941 reported that the branch was now operating between two sites and said of the original Westwell street office:

"Though the nether regions hang in festoons of wallpaper, laths and cobwebs, the general office has a moderately normal aspect: consequently clients refuse to be very convinced that we are not quite ourselves. We have no records, no books, no policies, no files, no ledgers, no sir, we have no way of turning it up but we will find out for you…!"

Road Transport and General Southampton branch

Sadly the same could not be said for the Plymouth Road Transport and General branch in Bedford Street which was totally destroyed as was the General Accident branch and that of Employers' Liability Assurance whose business was transferred to Exeter.

Working in the Maidstone office of Norwich Union Fire HJ Watts recorded the serious interferences to which day to day work was subject:

"What work could reasonably be done down in the shelter was done there, but our typists, with machines on the top floor of our building, had to put forward an extra special effort during the all clear periods, and they deserve every credit for crowding much work into a sadly reduced number of hours.

"The inevitable serious post and telephone delays added to the general dislocation and yet somehow the work of the branch was always maintained very nearly up-to-date."

Later the branch was damaged and staff had to move to the Norwich Union Life branch offices.

Yorkshire Insurance office on Castle Street, Swansea

Elsewhere in the country the Yorkshire Insurance office at Castle Buildings Fisher Street, Swansea, which also housed Scottish Boiler, was partly destroyed by enemy action in 1940, the Yorkshire then moved to Castle Street Swansea which was destroyed by fire in February 1941.

In Southampton in December 1941 group companies, Road Transport and General, Norwich Union and Ocean Accident all lost their branches; that of the Road Transport and General being completely gutted by fire after a bomb hit the building next door. The destruction of the Ocean Accident premises were described in the staff magazine by WWV.

"Many premises were still burning when, with great difficulty, 85 Above Bar was reached. At first it appeared we had again had a miraculous escape, but closer inspection revealed that, while the rather attractive façade of the old building had been left standing almost complete, the whole of the rest of the premises right down to the bottom of the basement was utterly destroyed, and nothing but smoking ruins remained…"

In Norwich one of the buildings housing the head office staff of the Norwich Union Fire Society was hit in the "Baedeker" reprisal raids of April 1942 and the staff magazine reported that one member of staff, Joyce Fox, had been killed when her home was hit and another member of staff and his wife had been buried up to their necks in earth thrown up by a bomb that hit their garden.

Commercial Union's Exeter branch

In the same series of raids Commercial Union's York office was totally destroyed on 28 April 1942 and on 4 May 1942 the company's Exeter branch, housed in the former West of England Head Office, was bombed out.

This raid was described as follows in the staff magazine:

"It started, after the city had been well illuminated by flares, with the dropping of high explosives around the perimeter… This was followed by showers of incendiaries on the main shopping centres, accompanied by some more high explosives and time bombs. And the Germans made a pretty thorough job of it all."

Commercial Union's Exeter branch

The branch relocated first to a local hotel (the Rougemont) and then to a house called Altamira in Topsham. In August 1942 the manager sent a letter to the branch agents stating,

"It is pleasing to report that most of our strong-rooms and safes stood up to the fierce heat and the bulk of our most vital records were saved except our ledgers. The ledgers were destroyed as were other valuable records and all current correspondence.

"As the Exeter General Post Office was also destroyed on the same night, many letters from and to our office were also lost. Some time will elapse before we are able to build up our ledgers and render accounts, but the work is proceeding apace and the indulgence of our agents is asked for in the interim."

A further raid on 24 June completely destroyed the Exeter branch of General Accident.

Other provincial Offices hit included the Bristol branch of General Accident which had to be evacuated after a near miss from a 1,000lb bomb and the company's Coventry and Birmingham branches which were damaged by blasts from H E Bombs.

General Accident's board minutes for 10 January 1941 record that the Portsmouth branch had been completely destroyed by fire: "The area of King's Terrace has been razed to the ground and is one of the most badly bombed areas in Britain." The board minutes of Employers' Liability Assurance similarly record damage to branches from Newcastle to Portsmouth and Sheffield to Swansea. The company's Liverpool branch was also hit on May 1941 while at Ocean Accident H Gleave was inspired to poetry (Doggerel rhymes of an evacuee) by the damage, partial evacuation and eventual requisition of that company's Liverpool branch office.