Aviva is hoping to make life easier for its growing band of US investors by creating a parallel listing on the New York Stock Exchange, in the first new issue of American Depositary Receipts from a UK company in almost a decade.

Andrew Moss, chief executive of the UK’s second-biggest insurer, said it had taken a couple of years of work to ensure Aviva was compliant with the US Sarbanes-Oxley governance rules.