This is a slightly complicated response, but bear with me and I will try to explain some key market features.
There are two broad categories of insurance – life and non-life. Insurance companies can offer one or the other, but not both (though life and general insurance companies can have a common owner, such as in the Zurich Group).
Non-life insurance (or general insurance) covers risks such as home, motor, travel, property, liability etc. Non-life insurance products have a term of 1 year typically, and pay out if defined losses occur. From a consumer’s perspective it offers peace of mind even if no loss occurs and compensation if a loss does occur.
Life insurance, as the name suggests, is the insurance of a life (or joint lives). There are two different types – one of which we might call conventional, and the other is investment linked.
A conventional life insurance policy will pay out a sum of money in the event of the death of the insured person. These types of policies are usually used to ensure that a family is not left destitute by the death of parents, or to ensure that a mortgage is paid off if the borrower dies. Like general insurance, conventional life assurance offers peace of mind even if no loss occurs and compensation if a loss does occur.
The second type of life insurance is an investment linked policy. This is very different to other types of insurance, and this is the type of insurance sold by deVere and other similar firms.
In some respects an investment linked policy is like any other investment, you can invest a lump-sum, or regular savings. However what you are buying is legally an insurance policy. In the event of the death of the policyholder (or investor) the insurance company will pay out (typically) 101% ofthe value of the sum invested. That extra 1% is the only insurance element, but it is sufficient to meet the definition of an insurance policy.
Investors often think that they own a portfolio of funds issued by various fund managers. This is not true, what they own is an insurance policy, the value of which is linked to those funds, but they do not own those funds.
These types of investment linked policies used to be widespread, but they are dying out because the outrageously expensive and opaque charging structures have been outlawed in most developed markets. They are still offered by insurance companies operating (usually) out of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. However they cannot be sold in those jurisdictions – this junk is for export only! They are usually sold by commission salesmen/saleswomen in poorly regulated countries.
So referring back to your post – the general insurance products that you bought were issued by a Zurich-branded general insurance company, probably established in Switzerland or a well-regulated onshore EU jurisdiction.
The Zurich investment products that deVere and others sell are issued by Zurich International Life Limited in the Isle of Man, a completely different company, offering completely different products, and governed (as far as the sales process is concerned) by no law.