GEICO Insurance

GEICO The Government Employees Insurance Company is an American auto insurance company headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It is the second largest auto insurer in the United States, after State Farm.[3] It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway that as of 2014 provided coverage for more than 22 million motor vehicles owned by more than 14 million policy holders. GEICO writes private passenger automobile insurance in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. GEICO sells its policies through local agents, called GEICO Field Representatives, and over the phone directly to the consumer, and through their website. Its mascot is a Gold dust day gecko with a Cockney accent, voiced by English actor Jake Wood. GEICO is well known in popular culture for its advertising, having made a large number of commercials intended to amuse viewers.

GEICO was founded in 1936 by Leo Goodwin Sr. and his wife Lillian Goodwin to provide auto insurance directly to federal government employees and their families.Since 1925, Goodwin had worked for USAA, an insurer which specialized in insuring only military personnel; he decided to start his own company after rising as far as a civilian could go in USAA's military-dominated hierarchy. Based on Goodwin's experience at USAA, GEICO's original business model was predicated on the assumption that federal employees as a group would constitute a less risky and more financially stable pool of insureds, as opposed to the general public. Despite the presence of the word "government" in its name, GEICO has always been a private corporation not affiliated with any government organization.

In 1937, the Goodwins relocated Advertising campaigns

Main article: GEICO advertising campaigns

GEICO has many well-known ad campaigns. In 2012 GEICO spent over $1.1 billion in advertising, or 6.8% of its revenue.[11] All are made and produced by The Martin Agency, which is based in Richmond, Virginia. GEICO ads have featured several well-known mascots, including:

Martin, The GEICO Gecko is the most prevalent spokesperson mascot and speaks with a Cockney accent.

The GEICO Cavemen (from ads claiming using their website is "so easy, a caveman could do it").

Maxwell, the GEICO "Piggy" who shouts a long "Whee" and appears in more radio and TV commercials.

Actor Mike McGlone, who uses film noir-style narration to compare the ease of GEICO to things, famous people, or idioms. ("Could switching to GEICO really save you 15% or more on car insurance?...Is having a snowball fight with pitching great Randy Johnson a bad idea?") The scene is then acted out, with typically humorous results. In addition to Johnson, other ads have included Charlie Daniels, Andrés Cantor, Foghorn Leghorn, Elmer Fudd, R. Lee Ermey, and Ed "Too Tall" Jones among others, including Maxwell the Piggy.

The "money savers" campaign enlisted actors to portray average consumers who have resorted to various humorous extremes in order to save money, such as teaching a dog to sing or teaching a group of Guinea pigs to row a boat and perform some mundane task for the consumer, and then presented switching to GEICO as an easy alternative to such endeavors with the common line ".... there's an easier way to save money."

The "Happier Than...." duo features Jimmy (actor Timothy Ryan Cole) and Ronnie (musician Alex Harvey) playing a guitar and a mandolin, respectively, on a small portable stage. They comment on a fictitious preceding event, such as a man dressed in 15th century attire laughing as he leads a trio of speed boats with the painted names Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. After cutting to the duo, one says to the other "You know, folks who save hundreds of dollars by switching to GEICO sure are happy." The other then replied, "How happy are they, (Jimmy/Ronnie)?" and in the case above, the response is "Happier than Christopher Columbus with speedboats!"

CASH, the stack of cash that represents the money you could have saved by switching to GEICO.

There are also GEICO ads that feature stories from GEICO customers about situations in which the company assisted them, but are translated by celebrities like Little Richard and Joan Rivers. Film trailer announcer Don LaFontaine appeared in one such ad, shortly before his death. The tag announcer for these spots was D.C. Douglas. GEICO is also an official sponsor of the National Hockey League and themed commercials for that always feature members of the hometown Washington Capitals. GEICO from San Antonio, Texas to Washington, D.C. and reincorporated the company as a D.C. corporation after realizing that their business model would work best in the place with the highest concentration of federal employees

An important figure in GEICO's history is David Lloyd Kreeger, who became president of the company in 1964 and helped steer it into a major insurance enterprise.[6] In 1948, he formed a group of investors who bought into GEICO right before it went public that year. He became senior vice president and general counsel of the company. Six years after becoming president of GEICO in 1964, he was named chairman and chief executive officer. He retained those titles until he retired in 1975. He continued as chairman of the executive committee until 1979, when he was named honorary chairman

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The American Express Bank

The American Express Company, also known as Amex, is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Manhattan's Three World Financial Center in New York City, United States. Founded in 1850, it is one of the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial AverageThe company is best known for its credit card, charge card, and traveler's cheque businesses. Amex cards account for approximately 24% of the total dollar volume of credit card transactions in the US.

Early history

In 1850, American Express was started as an express mail business in Buffalo, New York. It was founded as a joint stock corporation by the merger of the express companies owned by Henry Wells (Wells & Company), William G. Fargo (Livingston, Fargo & Company), and John Warren Butterfield (Wells, Butterfield & Company, the successor earlier in 1850 of Butterfield, Wasson & Company).Wells and Fargo also started Wells Fargo & Co. in 1852 when Butterfield and other directors objected to the proposal that American Express extend its operations to California.

American Express initially established its headquarters in a building at the intersection of Jay Street and Hudson Street in what was later called the Tribeca section of Manhattan. For years it enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the movement of express shipments (goods, securities, currency, etc.) throughout New York State. In 1874, American Express moved its headquarters to 65 Broadway in what was becoming the Financial District of Manhattan, a location it was to retain through two buildings.

American Express buildings

In 1854, the American Express Co. purchased a lot on Vesey Street in New York City as the site for its stables. The company's first New York headquarters was an 1858 marble Italianate palazzo at 55–61 Hudson Street, which had a busy freight depot on the ground story with a spur line from the Hudson River Railroad. A stable was constructed in 1867, five blocks north at 4–8 Hubert Street.

The company prospered sufficiently that headquarters were moved in 1874 from the wholesale shipping district to the budding Financial District, and into rented offices in two five-story brownstone commercial buildings at 63 and 65 Broadway that were owned by the Harmony family.

In 1880, American Express built a new warehouse behind the Broadway Building at 46 Trinity Place. The designer is unknown, but it has a façade of brick arches that are redolent of pre-skyscraper New York. American Express has long been out of this building, but it still bears a terracotta seal with the American Express Eagle.

ten-story building by Edward H. Kendall on the site of its former headquarters on Hudson Street.

By 1903, the company had assets of some $28 million, second only to the National City Bank of New York among financial institutions in the city. To reflect this, the company purchased the Broadway buildings and site.

At the end of the Wells-Fargo reign in 1914, an aggressive new president, George Chadbourne Taylor (1868–1923), who had worked his way up through the company over the previous thirty years, decided to build a new headquarters. The old buildings, dubbed by the New York Times as "among the ancient landmarks" of lower Broadway, were inadequate for such a rapidly expanding concern. After some delays due to the war in Europe, the 21-story neo-classical American Express Co. Building was constructed in 1916–17 to the design of James L. Aspinwall, of the firm of Renwick, Aspinwall & Tucker, the successor to the architectural practice of the eminent James Renwick, Jr.. The building consolidated the two lots of the former buildings with a single address: 65 Broadway. This building was part of the "Express Row" section of lower Broadway at the time. The building completed the continuous masonry wall of its block-front and assisted in transforming Broadway into the "canyon" of neo-classical masonry office towers familiar to this day.American Express extended its reach nationwide by arranging affiliations with other express companies (including Wells Fargo – the replacement for the two former companies that merged to form American Express), railroads, and steamship companies.

Financial services

In 1882, American Express started its expansion in the area of financial services by launching a money order business[13] to compete with the United States Post Office's money orders.

Sometime between 1888 and 1890, J. C. Fargo took a trip to Europe and returned frustrated and infuriated. Despite the fact that he was president of American Express and that he carried with him traditional letters of credit, he found it difficult to obtain cash anywhere except in major cities. Fargo went to Marcellus Flemming Berry and asked him to create a better solution than the letter of credit. Berry introduced the American Express Traveler's Cheque which was launched in 1891 in denominations of $10, $20, $50, and $100.[17]

Traveler's cheques established American Express as a truly international company. In 1914, at the onset of World War I, American Express in Europe was among the few companies to honor the letters of credit (issued by various banks) held by Americans in Europe, because other financial institutions refused to assist these stranded travelers.

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Bank of America

Bank of America (abbreviated as BoA or BofA) is an American multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It is the second largest bank holding company in the United States by assets.As of 2013, Bank of America is the twenty-first largest company in the United States by total revenue. In 2010, Forbes listed Bank of America as the third biggest company in the world.

Bank of America provides its products and services through operating 5,100 banking centers, 16,300 ATMs, call centers, and online and mobile banking platforms. Its Consumer Real Estate Services segment offers consumer real estate products comprising fixed and adjustable-rate first-lien mortgage loans for home purchase and refinancing needs, home equity lines of credit, and home equity loansThe bank's 2008 acquisition of Merrill Lynch made Bank of America the world's largest wealth management corporation and a major player in the investment banking market.

The history of Bank of America dates back to October 17, 1904,[1] when Amadeo Giannini founded the Bank of Italy in San Francisco. The Bank of Italy served the needs of many immigrants settling in the United States at that time, a service denied to them by the existing American banks who were typically discriminatory and often denied service to all but the wealthiest. 

Branch banking was introduced by Giannini shortly after 1909 legislation in California that allowed for branch banking in the state. Its first branch outside San Francisco was established in 1909 in San Jose. By 1929, the bank had 453 banking offices in California with aggregate resources of over US$1.4 billion.There is a replica of the 1909 Bank of Italy branch bank in History Park in San Jose, and the 1925 Bank of Italy Building is an important downtown landmark. Giannini sought to build a national bank, expanding into most of the western states as well as into the insurance industry, under the aegis of his holding company, Transamerica Corporation. In 1953, regulators succeeded in forcing the separation of Transamerica Corporation and Bank of America under the Clayton Antitrust ActThe passage of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 prohibited banks from owning non-banking subsidiaries such as insurance companies. Bank of America and Transamerica were separated, with the latter company continuing in the insurance business. However, federal banking regulators prohibited Bank of America's interstate banking activity, and Bank of America's domestic banks outside California were forced into a separate company that eventually became First Interstate Bancorp, later acquired by Wells Fargo and Company in 1996. It was not until the 1980s with a change in federal banking legislation and regulation that Bank of America was again able to expand its domestic consumer banking activity outside California.New technologies also allowed credit cards to be linked directly to individual bank accounts. In 1958, the bank introduced the BankAmericard, which changed its name to Visa in 1977.[26] A consortium of other California banks introduced Master Charge (now MasterCard) to compete with BankAmericard.

Expansion outside California

Following the passage of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, BankAmerica Corporation was established for the purpose of owning and operation of Bank of America and its subsidiaries.

Bank of America expanded outside California in 1983 with its acquisition of Seafirst Corporation of Seattle, Washington, and its wholly owned banking subsidiary, Seattle-First National Bank. Seafirst was at risk of seizure by the federal government after becoming insolvent due to a series of bad loans to the oil industry. BankAmerica continued to operate its new subsidiary as Seafirst rather than Bank of America until the 1998 merger with NationsBank.

BankAmerica experienced huge losses in 1986 and 1987 by the placement of a series of bad loans in the Third World, particularly in Latin America. The company fired its CEO, Sam Armacost. Though Armacost blamed the problems on his predecessor, A.W. (Tom) Clausen, Clausen was appointed to replace Armacost. The losses resulted in a huge decline of BankAmerica stock, making it vulnerable to a hostile takeover. First Interstate Bancorp of Los Angeles (which had originated from banks once owned by BankAmerica), launched such a bid in the fall of 1986, although BankAmerica rebuffed it, mostly by selling operations. It sold its FinanceAmerica subsidiary to Chrysler and the brokerage firm Charles Schwab and Co. back to Mr. Schwab. It also sold Bank of America and Italy to Deutsche Bank. By the time of the 1987 stock market crash, BankAmerica's share price had fallen to $8, but by 1992 it had rebounded mightily to become one of the biggest gainers of that half-decade.

An expansion into New York City (right).

The Bank of America Tower in New York City.

BankAmerica's next big acquisition came in 1992. The company acquired its California rival, Security Pacific Corporation and its subsidiary Security Pacific National Bank in California and other banks in Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington (which Security Pacific had acquired in a series of acquisitions in the late 1980s). This was, at the time, the largest bank acquisition in history. Federal regulators, however, forced the sale of roughly half of Security Pacific's Washington subsidiary, the former Rainier Bank, as the combination of Seafirst and Security Pacific Washington would have given BankAmerica too large a share of the market in that state. The Washington branches were divided and sold to West One Bancorp (now U.S. Bancorp) and KeyBank.[27] Later that year, BankAmerica expanded into Nevada by acquiring Valley Bank of Nevada.Giannini was raised by his mother and stepfather Lorenzo Scatena, as his father was fatally shot over a pay dispute with an employee.[19] When the 1906 San Francisco earthquake struck, Giannini was able to save all deposits out of the bank building and away from the fires. Because San Francisco's banks were in smoldering ruins and unable to open their vaults, Giannini was able to use the rescued funds to commence lending within a few days of the disaster. From a makeshift desk consisting of a few planks over two barrels, he lent money to those who wished to rebuild

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Capital One

Capital OneCapital One Financial Corporation is an American bank holding company specializing in credit cards, home loans, auto loans, banking and savings products. When measured in terms of total assets and deposits, Capital One is the eighth-largest bank holding company in the United States. As of 2012, The bank has 963 Capital One Bank Branches  ncluding 10 café style locations for their Capital One 360 brand On July 27, 1994, Richmond, Virginia-based Signet Financial Corp announced the spin off of its credit card division, OakStone Financial, naming Richard Fairbank as CEO[12] (Signet Banking Corp is now part of Wells Fargo). Signet renamed the subsidiary Capital One in October of that year.[13] The spinoff was concluded February 28, 1995, making Capital One fully independent. Unlike other diversified financial services firms, Capital One began as a "monoline", meaning the vast majority of its business was in consumer lending, particularly credit cards. Remaining a monoline is risky, as it can be very profitable industry in good times, and markedly unprofitable in bad. Most consumer-lending monolines in the past twenty years have either gone out of business (e.g., The Money Store, NextCard, Royal Acceptance) or have been acquired (e.g., MBNA, Beneficial, First USA); Capital One is notable for having experienced neither. 

Capital One Auto Finance

Capital One Auto Financial Corporation is the parent company of Capital One Auto Finance Company, based in Plano, Texas The company includes Summit Acceptance Corporation, which Capital One acquired in July 1998, and PeopleFirst Finance LLC, which was acquired in October 2001. The companies were combined and rebranded as Capital One Auto Finance Corporation in 2003. As of 2012, Capital One Auto Finance is the largest Internet auto lender, as well as one of the top US auto lenders overall.

The company, which previously sold auto loans only through direct mail and auto dealerships, lets auto owners refinance existing auto loans and shoppers apply for new auto loans online. A decision usually comes within 15 minutes, after which the buyer receives a "blank check" for up to the approved auto loan amount, which the buyer uses to purchase a car. To the dealership, it is as if the buyer were paying cash. The checks can be used to purchase a new or used vehicle, or to refinance an existing auto loan with another lender.

CapitalOne 360

CapitalOne 360 is an online banking division of Capital One. The division originated in a separate company, ING Direct, which was founded in 2000 in Wilmington, Delaware as a brand for a branchless direct bank. In September 2007, ING Direct acquired 104,000 customers and FDIC insured assets from the failed virtual bank NetBank.Two months later, ING Direct acquired online stock broker Sharebuilder.Since 2001, Capital One has been the principal sponsor of the college football Florida Citrus Bowl, rebranding it the Capital One Bowl in 2003. It sponsors a mascot challenge every year, announcing the winner on the day of the Capital One Bowl. Capital One is one of the top three sponsors of the NCAA, paying an estimated $35 million annually in exchange for advertising and access to consumer data.

wo months later, ING Direct acquired online stock broker Sharebuilder.

In June 2011, Capital One Financial Corporation purchased ING Direct USA from its Netherlands based parent, ING Group, paying US$9 billion (€6.3 billion). The sale was completed on June 16, 2011 with the CEO of ING Group at that time Jan Hommen saying the sale "marks a further important step in the restructuring of ING Group. Yet at the same time we are saying goodbye to a very successful business and a dedicated teamFollowing the acquisition, ING direct was rebranded Capital One 360

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Citigroup Bank

Citigroup Inc. or Citi is an American multinational investment banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Manhattan, New York City. Citigroup was formed from one of the world's largest mergers in history by combining the banking giant Citicorp and financial conglomerate Travelers Group in October 1998 (announced on April 7, 1998)  As of January 2015, it is the third largest bank holding company in the US by assets. Its largest shareholders include funds from the Middle East and Singapore  In 2007, Citigroup was one of the primary dealers in US Treasury securities. Citigroup suffered huge losses during the global financial crisis of 2008 and was rescued in November 2008 in a massive stimulus package by the U.S. government On February 27, 2009, Citigroup announced that the U.S. government would take a 36% equity stake in the company by converting US$25 billion in emergency aid into common stock with a US Treasury credit line of $45 billion to prevent the bankruptcy of the largest bank in the world at the time.  The government guaranteed losses on more than $300 billion troubled assets and injected $20 billion immediately into the company. In exchange, the salary of the CEO was set at $1 per year and the highest salary of employees was restricted to $500,000 in cash. Any compensation amount above $500,000 had to be paid with restricted stock that could not be sold by the employee until the emergency government aid was repaid in full. The U.S. government also gained control of half the seats in the Board of Directors, and the senior management was subjected to removal by the US government if there were poor performance. By December 2009, the U.S. government stake was reduced from a 36% stake to a 27% stake, after Citigroup sold $21 billion of common shares and equity in the largest single share sale in U.S. history, surpassing Bank of America's $19 billion share sale one month prior. By December 2010, Citigroup repaid the emergency aid in full and the U.S. government received an additional $12 billion profit in selling its shares.US Government restrictions on pay and oversight of the senior management were removed after the US government sold its remaining 27% stake as of December 2010.

As of 2009, Citigroup was one of the Big Four banks in the United States, with Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo. As of June 2012, the year of Citi's 200th anniversary, Citigroup had built up an enormous cash reserve in the wake of the financial crisis with $420 billion in surplus liquid cash and government securities As of Q1 2012, Citi had a tier 1 capital ratio of 12.4%, making Citi one of the best-capitalized financial institutions in the world after billions of dollars in losses from the financial crisis  A special IRS tax exception given to Citi allowed the US Treasury to sell its shares at a profit, while it still owned Citigroup shares, which eventually netted $12 billion. According to Treasury spokeswoman Nayyera Haq, "This (IRS tax) rule was designed to stop corporate raiders from using loss corporations to evade taxes, and was never intended to address the unprecedented situation where the government owned shares in banks. And it was certainly not written to prevent the government from selling its shares for a profit.

History

City Bank of New York was chartered by New York State on June 16, 1812, with $2 million of capital. Serving a group of New York merchants, the bank opened for business on September 14 of that year, and Samuel Osgood was elected as the first President of the company.

The history of the company is, thus, divided into the workings of several firms that over time amalgamated into Citicorp, a multinational banking corporation operating in more than 100 countries; or Travelers Group, whose businesses covered credit services, consumer finance, brokerage, and insurance. As such, the company history dates back to the founding of: the City Bank of New York (later Citibank) in 1812; Bank Handlowy in 1870; Smith Barney in 1873, Banamex in 1884; Salomon Brothers in 1910.

City Bank of New York was chartered by New York State on June 16, 1812, with $2 million of capital. Serving a group of New York merchants, the bank opened for business on September 14 of that year, and Samuel Osgood was elected as the first President of the company.[31] The company's name was changed to The National City Bank of New York in 1865 after it joined the new U.S. national banking system, and it became the largest American bank by 1895.[31] It became the first contributor to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 1913, and the following year it inaugurated the first overseas branch of a U.S. bank in Buenos Aires, although the bank had, since the mid-19th century, been active in plantation economies, such as the Cuban sugar industry. The 1918 purchase of U.S. overseas bank International Banking Corporation helped it become the first American bank to surpass $1 billion in assets, and it became the largest commercial bank in the world in 1929.[31] As it grew, the bank became a leading innovator in financial services, becoming the first major U.S. bank to offer compound interest on savings (1921); unsecured personal loans (1928); customer checking accounts (1936) and the negotiable certificate of deposit

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