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‘Same same but different’: Trust, Confidence and Governance Among Swedish Mutual Insurers

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Managing Hybrid Organizations

Abstract

For more than a century, mutual insurers have dominated the Swedish insurance market. Independent of the historical roots and traditions, companies that sell life and other (non-life) forms of insurance have chosen the mutual organizational form. We focus on two different mutual insurers—Folksam and Länsförsäkringar—in decoding their historical roots, governance and management structure. Our focus is on the differences and similarities with special attention to customer’s participation in governance. The chapter shows that it is indeed possible to organize successful hybrid organizations with longevity and that the state’s role in the process is vital but not always a precondition for successful development of hybrid firms. In addition, the chapter also shows that it is difficult to include customers/owners in the governance of these firms and that there exist many different options for creating such systems.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Another example is Dina Försäkringar (Your Insurances) that is a cooperation of 11 independent parish (local) mutual insurers. In collaboration, a common joint-stock company was founded for dealing with reinsurance and supporting the individual insurer in 1987 and since 2006 uses the common brand name.

  2. 2.

    The so-called parliamentary procedure for electing representatives at Folksam meant that different organizations within the labour movement could select a certain number of representatives, see further below.

  3. 3.

    Folksam archive, Till Riksdagens Bankoutskott, yttrande angående försäkringsväsendets organisation och ställning, 18 March 1965; PM angående principöverenskommelse om samarbete mellan Folksam och sparbankerna, 16 September 1966. The cooperation between Folksam and the savings banks can be explained by a community of interests between the two companies. A large portion of both organizations’ customer base was from the working class. However, this also resulted in problems in the local markets, where the saving banks often cooperated with the local LF companies.

  4. 4.

    The number of policyholders in LFSkåne was just over 429,000 in 2016. Compared to the number of valid votes, this may seem very low—0.6 per cent of the policyholders. This was, however, considerable higher than the previous election. Similar results were also noted in LFBergslagen, where the number of voters increased by 1000 per cent when online voting was introduced, see LFBergslagen annual report 2016.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economic History, Uppsala Centre for Business History, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Mats Larsson

  2. Department of Social Sciences, School of Business Studies, ENTER forum, Södertörn University, Huddinge, Stockholm, Sweden

    Mikael Lönnborg

Authors
  1. Mats Larsson
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Correspondence to Mikael Lönnborg .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Score, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Susanna Alexius  & Staffan Furusten  & 

  2. Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm, Sweden

    Susanna Alexius  & Staffan Furusten  & 

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Larsson, M., Lönnborg, M. (2019). ‘Same same but different’: Trust, Confidence and Governance Among Swedish Mutual Insurers. In: Alexius, S., Furusten, S. (eds) Managing Hybrid Organizations. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95486-8_3

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