Bartlett | About - Independent, International Financial Specialists

About the Bartlett Group

We are not a huge firm.

We’re international, but our employees number in their hundreds, not the thousands of our competitors. And Bartlett is still proudly independent after more than 80 years.

In a world of financial giants, you might expect us to be at a disadvantage.

Yet in 2020, Bartlett was named as UK Broker of the Year, Commercial Lines Broker of the Year and in 2021 we were ranked first in the Financial Times Top 100 UK Financial Advisers. We act for businesses, charities and individuals in over 40 countries – from regional manufacturing firms to large publicly-listed multinationals. And our private clients include families we have worked with for generations.

Our secret weapon? We know where the markets we work in break down. And we know what to do about it.

The Bartlett story

In 1940 Bartlett & Co. was Bradford’s newest (and smallest) insurance broker. It consisted of Fred Bartlett - who was also working shifts in a coal mine to help with the war effort - a secretary and a tiny two-room office.

Breaking into the market was tough, and early jobs included insuring a scrapyard, a service pipe running along Morecambe Pier, and a successful shrimp merchant.

But Fred showed a flair for finding and securing new business, and by the time Bartlett & Co. moved to Broadway Hall in Leeds in 1967 we had already outgrown two sets of offices.

Since the Eighties we have expanded overseas and now have offices as far afield as Sydney, Hong Kong and Philadelphia. Our focus has become increasingly specialist, offering services in areas that require deep technical knowledge.

Fred Bartlett’s maxim was that the best advertisement a business can have is the quality of service it provides. We have never aimed to be the biggest. But we do aim to provide the best quality.