In 1887, an independent business, the Ecclesiastical Buildings Fire Office, was founded by two MPs, three clergymen, a barrister and a clerk of the House of Lords and its directors comprised five clerics and five laymen.

This was celebrated by a special Thanksgiving service in Gloucester Cathedral at which a personal message of thanks from Archbishop Justin Welby was read out by Bishop Nigel Stock, honouring the achievement of the insurance group.

[10][11][12] In March 2016, Archbishop Welby's office and Bishop Paul Butler came under considerable criticism for having followed instruction from Ecclesiastical to end contact with a sex abuse survivor.

The Archbishop of Canterbury's office ignored repeated calls for help from the man after staff were told to avoid contact with him to protect the Church of England's financial interests.

[13][14][15] In October 2017, Ecclesiastical received a letter from Bishops Paul Butler, Tim Thornton, and Alan Wilson criticising amongst other things: inconsistent advice to the Church and the practice of 'horse trade' legalism when dealing with CSA cases, with little concern for the impact upon survivors.

The letter was copied to Justin Welby and John Sentamu, Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and to William Nye, Secretary General of the Church of England's Synod.

The three bishops requested a meeting with Ecclesiastical to look at how the church and the insurer work together in relation to the difficulties in responding to survivors of child sex abuse.

They went on to say that the influence of Ecclesiastical seemed "omnipresent”, and that it appeared the Church's safeguarding officers might be required to gather information from survivors in order to defeat possible claims for damages.