As far as we are aware there have been no life insurance demutualizations in the U.K. in recent times, that is conversions from mutual to proprietary form. There has been movement in the other direction: in the 1960's a number of U.K. proprietary companies converted to mutual form to escape the unwelcome attentions of the corporate raiders of the time.

In the U.S. and South Africa however, the two countries which give us the demutualization examples in this paper, there have been in recent years a number of significant demutualizations. In the next chapter we give a sketch of the background to demutualization in these countries.

In Section 3 we explore why a mutual might wish to undergo such a lengthy, costly and probably painful process. The motivation will vary from country to country, depending on the particular economic and institutional background. We have tried to be as general as possible.