Ecclesiastical Insurance is an insurance company in the United Kingdom founded in 1887. The head office is located in Gloucester. The company is formally named Ecclesiastical Insurance Office plc and is authorised and regulated by the FCA and PRA. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Benefact Group which in turn is owned by Benefact Trust (previously known as Allchurches Trust), a registered charity whose objectives are to promote the Christian religion and to provide funds for other charitable purposes. Ecclesiastical Insurance Office plc has over £100m Preference Shares listed on the London Stock Exchange. It was established by the Church of England to provide insurance cover for its buildings. It now covers a wide range of insurance business, and in 2006 it ranked 16th in liability insurance and 20th in accident insurance based on UK Net Written Premiums. Customers include Gloucester Cathedral and St Paul's Cathedral. History In 1887, an independent business, the Ecclesiastical Buildings Fire Office, was founded by two MPs, three clergymen, a barrister and a clerk of the House of Lords and its directors comprised five clerics and five laymen. Two of the principal founders were Dean Herbert Gregory and John Duncan. They were determined, after a series of high-profile fires had left parishes with ruined churches and no means of restoring them, that there should be a reliable fire insurance service for parishes in their time of need. One of the founding principles was to plough any profits back into charitable work. In April 1894 the Company announced that it would add burglary and personal accident insurance to its business, and a year later, because it was no longer restricted to fire business, the company changed its name to Ecclesiastical Insurance Office. In 1978, the company launched its first specialist policy for schools, now known as education insurance. This was at a time when schools were starting to have more responsibility for their own budgets and more equipment. Ecclesiastical Insurance founded its investment management arm, Ecclesiastical Investment Management Limited, in 1988, and launched the UK's first socially responsible fund, the UK Amity fund. The investment management business rebranded to EdenTree in July 2015. Ecclesiastical was awarded Chartered Insurer status for its entire UK operations by the Chartered Insurance Institute in 2013. In 2015 the company moved its London operations from Billiter Street to new offices in Monument Place. In 2016, Ecclesiastical celebrated a milestone of