User:Morahimm/sandbox

It was the first insurance company in India owned and run by Muslims targeted for the Muslim populace. Abdur Rahman Siddiqui of Surat and Khonkar Fazle Haider of Murshidabad district were the company's founders. Siddiqui and Haider executed a “memorandum of understanding” in 1931 with one of leading British insurance companies, the “Atlas” and Messrs. B.M. Collins, Lloyds brokers. The company was incorporated on 2 September 1932 in Calcutta with E.N. Menhinick, a senior manager of Atlas as the first general manager of the company. The main objective of the company was to provide “insurance service to the community and also to produce competent Muslim insurance personnel.”

Aga Khan, Hamidullah Khan (last Nawab of Bhopal) became the “Patrons” of the new company. Ghulam Muhammad helped to arrange substantial subscriptions from the Hyderabad State and Bhopal. Sir Victor Sasoon became the largest foreign shareholder and Mirza Ahmad Ispahani family purchased the remaining lot. The company officially started as a general insurance company. Siddiqui would serve as founding director and chairman for almost 20 years and Haider later served as the general manager of the company for nine years. In 1936, the company started underwriting life insurance business. In 1947, when Partition of India took place, Ispahani moved the company’s registered office to Chittagong, East Pakistan and head office to Karachi, West Pakistan. In 1952, the company hired Khuda Buksh, an inspector from Oriental Governmental Security Life Assurance, Calcutta, as life manager for East Pakistan. In 1953, Erwin C. Iven, deputy general manager reported that the EFU suffered heavy losses in overseas underwriting against Liberty ships. In late 1950’s the company reached almost at the door of bankruptcy due to debt accumulated on the overseas underwriting against Liberty ships. Abbas Khaleeli, a former bureaucrat and Roshen Ali Bhimjee, owner of Insurance Agency Pak Underwriters were credited for averting the bankruptcy. Subsequently the Ispahanis disinvested his shares, major shares were taken by the “Habib family” ARAG Limited and rest was distributed to the public. Khuda Buksh worked for the company for about 17 years and was recognized as the driving force who “had successfully helped to grow the company into the leading and dominating position” in the country. In March 1971, Bangladesh Liberation War started and Bangladesh was born in December 1971 when the EFU lost its eastern division. By 1972, Pakistan and Bangladesh nationalized all life insurance companies.