Independent Order of Odd Fellows Manchester Unity Friendly Society

The Oddfellows is a friendly society that sells savings-type accounts and insurance policies, and it also runs a membership scheme with care and welfare benefits that sit alongside the financial products. It trades under the name Unity Mutual, so paperwork may carry either name for the same firm¹.

The membership side is what sets it apart from a bank. Members get access to a Care & Welfare team that offers advice on care or welfare concerns and help accessing local support services, a Legal Aid Scheme giving access to claims for personal injury, medical negligence or employment disputes, an Accidental Death Benefit providing financial support to a member's next-of-kin, and discretionary Benevolence Grants to help members through a tough time. Members also have direct access to a dedicated team at Citizens Advice².

On the financial side, the society holds permission to accept deposits and appears on the Bank of England's list of UK insurers authorised to carry out contracts of insurance¹. Its website is www.oddfellows.co.uk, which is the address recorded on its FCA register entry¹. The society traces its origins to a group of workers who came together in a pub in Salford².

What the Oddfellows offers: insurance and savings-type products

The society's FCA permission is to accept deposits, and it appears on the Bank of England's list of UK insurers authorised to carry out contracts of insurance¹. Those two permissions describe the two sides of what it sells: savings-type accounts on one side, and insurance policies on the other.

On the savings side, a deposit-taking friendly society offers accounts in much the same way a building society does. The mechanics a reader needs to understand are the same ones that apply to any savings account: whether the account is easy access or fixed for a term, how interest is calculated and paid, what happens if you need the money early, and whether the account is a cash ISA. Our guide to savings accounts explains how those features work, and the ISAs guide covers the tax-free versions.

On the insurance side, the society is authorised to carry out contracts of insurance³. Where a firm sells insurance that it does not underwrite itself, the policy is provided by another insurer and the firm acts as the seller; the policy documents name the insurer that carries the risk. That distinction matters because it determines which firm you claim against and which firm's authorisation is relevant.

The membership benefits sit outside the financial products. The Care & Welfare team, the Legal Aid Scheme, the Accidental Death Benefit and the Benevolence Grants are all described as member benefits rather than as policy terms².

Who can join and how membership works

Membership of a friendly society is normally tied to holding a product. At Sheffield Mutual, another UK friendly society, adult policyholders automatically become members of the society and gain discretionary benefits such as optical and dental grants⁴. The Oddfellows describes its benefits as available to members, including the Care & Welfare support, the Legal Aid Scheme, the Accidental Death Benefit and the Benevolence Grants².

The word to notice in that list is discretionary. A discretionary grant is not a contractual entitlement in the way an insurance payout is. It is a payment the society may make, on terms it sets, and the fact that it is described as discretionary is the signal that it is not guaranteed in the same way a policy benefit is.

Membership also carries a say in how the society is run, which is the point of the mutual structure. Building societies are owned by their members rather than by outside shareholders⁵, and credit unions are non-profit financial institutions owned by members who hold savings in the union⁶. A friendly society follows the same model, so members are the owners rather than customers of an outside shareholder.

If you are weighing up whether to hold a savings account or a policy with a mutual rather than a bank, the practical differences are in how the firm is owned, what it does with its surplus, and what extra membership benefits come with the product. The financial protection that applies to the product itself is a separate question, and it is covered below.

A friendly society owned by its members

A friendly society is one of the mutual forms registered in the UK. The Public Mutual Register covers organisations registered under a list of statutes that includes the Friendly Societies Act 1974 and the Friendly Societies Act 1992, alongside the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014, the Credit Unions Act 1979 and the Building Societies Act 1986⁷. In the UK there are more than 9,000 mutual organisations currently registered by the Financial Conduct Authority⁷.

The defining feature of a mutual is ownership. Building societies are owned by their members rather than by outside shareholders⁵, and credit unions are non-profit financial institutions owned by members who hold savings in the union⁶. A friendly society works on the same principle: the people who hold its policies and accounts are the people it belongs to.

That ownership shape changes what the firm is for. A mutual does not have to generate a return for shareholders, so the surplus it makes can be held in the business or returned to members in some form. It also means the interests of customers and owners are the same people, which is why mutuals tend to describe their products in terms of membership rather than as a simple transaction.

For a reader, the practical question is not the structure but what it delivers. The structure matters in three places: how the firm is regulated, what happens if it fails, and whether you have a say in how it is run. The rest of this page deals with each of those.

Oddfellows and Unity Mutual: the names you may see

The FCA register entry for firm reference number 109995 lists Unity Mutual as the current trading name and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Manchester Unity Friendly Society as a previous name¹. So the two names are not two firms. They are the same organisation, and correspondence, statements and policy documents may carry either.

This matters most when you are checking whether a firm is genuine. If a letter arrives headed Unity Mutual and you search the register for the Oddfellows, you will find the same entry, and the reverse is also true. The register entry is the single place where the names are tied together¹.

It also matters when you are comparing what you hold. If you have an account or policy with the Oddfellows and another with Unity Mutual, you do not have two separate relationships with two separate firms. You have one relationship with one firm, which affects how any protection limit is counted.

How to deal with the Oddfellows: website and contact routes

The society's website is www.oddfellows.co.uk¹. That is where its product terms, current figures and membership information sit, and it is the address to use if you are checking whether a communication is genuine.

Before dealing with any financial firm, the standard check is the FCA register. The FSCS advises searching the Financial Conduct Authority register to check that it authorises your financial adviser when you are considering getting financial advice about your pension⁸, and the same check applies to any firm you are about to place money with. The FSCS also sets out a two-step approach: find out whether the particular activity the authorised firm is carrying out for you is regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority or the FCA⁹.

Northern Ireland's guidance on protecting yourself from scams puts the point bluntly: if you are unsure about a financial services company, check the Financial Conduct Authority register of regulated companies, and if they are not on it, do not have anything to do with them¹⁰.

If you are helping someone else deal with their money, Age UK can give you information and its website carries useful fact sheets¹¹. Advice NI's helplines and local advice agencies can help clarify what support you might be able to access¹², and Independent Age runs a free, confidential benefits check¹³.

Complaints and where to get help

Start with the firm. Every regulated financial firm has a complaints process, and the Financial Ombudsman Service can only usually step in once you have been through it and are unhappy with the final response. The ombudsman's own description of its role is that it is operationally independent of the regulator while following the rules in the FCA handbook¹⁴.

The ombudsman is free to use. It describes itself as a free, independent service that can look at complaints about pension provider or adviser handling¹⁵, and it can consider complaints from microenterprises and small and medium-sized businesses as well as consumers¹⁶. Where a complaint concerns an FCA-regulated debt and you are not happy with the final response, the ombudsman is the next step¹⁷. Insurance brokers point customers to the same free and easy-to-use complaints service via the Financial Ombudsman Service¹⁸.

The Building Societies Association sets out the general route for complaints about a financial services organisation¹⁹, and the ombudsman's website is at www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk¹⁹.

If a complaint is about a pension, the ombudsman can look at complaints about group personal pensions²⁰. If money has been lost to a scam, the ombudsman has warned about pension scammers and the need to keep pension savings safe²¹, and the FSCS publishes its own guidance on protecting yourself from pension scams²².

For wider money problems, free and impartial help is available. The Money and Pensions Service provides free independent and impartial information and guidance²², and The Pensions Advisory Service offers the same for pensions²². Citizens Advice is a network of independent charities providing free, independent and confidential advice on financial issues and legal matters²³, and its website is www.citizensadvice.org.uk²⁴. StepChange lists the regulatory bodies that cover financial firms¹⁷. If you are dealing with debt, the Money and Mental Health charity lists organisations that can help²⁵, and Macmillan's money advisers can help with benefits, savings and grants if you are affected by cancer²⁶.

How your money is protected: FCA and PRA oversight

The society is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority¹. That dual arrangement is normal for firms that take deposits or carry out insurance business: the PRA supervises prudential soundness, and the FCA supervises conduct. The regulation of organisations carrying out financial services activities such as deposit-taking and making investments is undertaken by the FCA and the Bank of England's Prudential Regulation Authority under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and related legislation⁷.

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme is the backstop when a regulated firm fails. Its scope is narrower than people assume. The FSCS says it can only protect money held by UK branches of authorised banks and building societies²⁷, and separately that it protects money held in all authorised UK banks, even if they do not have any branches²⁸. It also covers investments and pensions, and publishes guides to investment protection⁹ and pension protection²⁹.

The important limit for a mutual is this: the FSCS states that other mutuals and friendly societies only carry out unregulated activities that will not be protected by FSCS, such as housing associations, sports, social and working men's clubs, NHS foundations and co-operative schools³⁰. So the question is never simply whether the firm is a friendly society. It is what the firm is doing for you. A deposit held with an authorised deposit-taker and an insurance policy issued by an authorised insurer fall within the scheme; an unregulated activity does not.

Friendly societies have also historically been covered by a separate arrangement. The Friendly Societies Protection Scheme was a voluntary scheme approved under section 141 of the Financial Services Act 1986, providing cover for contracts of insurance issued by friendly societies at a level equivalent to that of the Policyholders Protection Scheme for comparable insurance company business³¹. That is a 1999 description of the scheme, so it is a historical reference point rather than a statement of current cover.

The practical steps are the ones the FSCS sets out: check the firm on the FCA register⁸, establish which regulator covers the activity⁹, and then check what the scheme covers for that type of product³⁰. If you cannot find a firm on the FSCS list, the scheme publishes guidance on what to do next³².