Safeco Corporation





Safeco Corporation is a major US-American national insurance company which
also provides financial services in the form of mutual funds, retirement
accounts and services, and trust services, as well as surety bonds and
structured settlements.

SAFECO was founded in Seattle, Washington in 1923 by Hawthorne K. Dent as
the General Insurance Company of America, a property and casualty insurer,
which name is still used by Safeco on some of its insurance products. Thirty
years later the company founded the Selective Auto and Fire Insurance
Company of America, or SAFECO.

General Insurance began to sell life insurance in 1957. Eleven years later
the corporate name changed from the General Insurance Company of America to
SAFECO Corporation. Around the same time the company began to offer mutual
funds and commercial credit (though precursors to the SAFECO Funds had been
around since the 1930's).

In 1997, SAFECO bought American States Financial Corporation so as to expand
beyond the West Coast. Washington Mutual's WM Life Insurance Company was
purchased the same year. Two years later SAFECO bought R.F. Bailey
(Underwriting Agencies) Limited of London so as to better provide
international services. In the economic downturn that followed, these
purchases put a severe financial strain on the company, but restructuring
has restored profitability. Commercial credit operations were sold to
General Electric in 2001.

Corporate headquarters remain in the University District of Seattle.