r. A. A. RECORD— December, 1933 



47 



Country Life Steps 



^ V ; Ahead During 1933 



By L. A. Williams, Manager 

 Country Life Insurance Co. 



L. A. WILLIAH8 



AS THE year draws to a close, 

 it is certain that by Jan. 1, 

 Country Life Insurance Com- 

 pany will have in force close to $54,- 

 000,000 of insurance, and this after 

 less than five years of operation. The 

 current year again has seen Country 

 Life make new gains in spite of low 

 farm buying power. 



The first Coun- 

 try Life insur- 

 ance policy was 

 written i n Feb- 

 ruary 1929. The 

 company was or- 

 ganized late in 

 the fall of the pre- 

 ceding year, but 

 had not been able 

 to get the pre- 

 liminary details 

 arranged in time 

 to begin actual 

 selling until that time. And these 

 preliminary details seemed at first to 

 be almost insurmountable obstacles. 



No Trained Agents 



In the first place, there were no 

 trained agents available. Our sales 

 organization had to be built complete- 

 ly from raw material. It was recog- 

 nized from the start that the "high- 

 , pressure" type of insurance salesman 

 would not be compatible with the 

 ideals of Country Life. For that rea- 

 son inexperienced men were the only 

 ones available. They were selected 

 from the various counties on their 

 records, and a series of intensive 

 training schools conducted, not only to 

 teach them the advantages of Country 

 Life, but to instill in their minds the 

 very fundamentals of life insurance 

 practice. 



Officials of the Illinois Agricultural 

 Association were not interested in 

 building their foundations half way. 

 They knew the need of the Illinois 

 farmer 'for a sound, stable life-insur- 

 ance, and they believed the farmer 

 would take advantage of his oppor- 

 tunity to obtain such life insurance, 

 once it was presented to him. For 

 that reason they built the foundation 

 to support a truly big company, in 

 every sense of the word. Today the 

 wisdom of such a course is evident 

 to the most casual observer. 



Not only had Country Life to build 

 a sales organization, in the old days, 

 but it had also to overcome doubts 

 ^hat existed among farmers them- 

 selves. Old line insurance companies, 



.some of whom were planning on get- 

 ting a large amount of farm business, 

 spread propaganda against the idea. 

 Even some Farm Bureau members 

 were doubtful whether in such a spe- 

 cialized, complicated business as life 

 insurance it would be possible for a 

 co-operative farm organization to suc- 

 ceed and it took months to prove to 

 them that their attitude was a mis- 

 taken one. 



Complete Confidence 



Country Life has enjoyed the com- 

 plete confidence of Illinois farmers, and 

 while there are scores of cases that 

 could be cited where Farm Bureau 

 members signed policy applications, 

 largely from a sense of loyalty, the 

 great majority had confidence in the 

 Illinois Agricultural Association 

 which made the company possible. As 

 Country Life has continued to grow 

 and develop doubters have been con- 

 vinced of its soundness and merit and 

 have taken out two and even three 

 additional policies, largely on the 

 strength of the Country Life record. 



The opposition of other insurance 

 organizations has all but disappeared. 

 They needed only to be convinced that 

 Country Life was a sound, conserva- 

 tive organization, and that it was not 

 founded on the promotional idea as so 

 many companies have been in the 

 past, companies, by the way, which 

 have almost wholly disappeared due 

 to the incraasing stringency of state 

 insurance laws and state insurance 

 supervision. 



At the close of the year 1929, in 

 which we had about 11 months of 

 actual operation, Country Life Insur- 

 ance company had in force approxi- 

 mately $19,000,000 of insurance. The 

 increasing efficiency of its sales force, 

 and the growth of public confidence 

 in the organization was revealed at 

 the close of 1930 when Country Life's 

 insurance in force had increased to 

 $35,000,000. In 1931 it had further in- 

 creased to $43,000,000; in 1932 it 

 totalled $47,500,000 and the figure this 

 year, according to present indications, 

 will approximate $54,000,000 or more, 

 an increase of about $7,000,000 during 

 one of the worst business years in the 

 country's history. , 



Term To Age 65 



Some of this increase, doubtless, 

 has been due to the fixed policy of 

 Country Life that its sole reason for 

 existence is to serve its policyholders. 

 In 1932 the officers of the company 

 realized that due to the declining 

 prices of farm products, it was becom- 

 ing more and more difficult to write 

 life insurance. The demand for in- 

 surance was growing every day, farm- 



ers particularly realized the value of : 

 protection for the family in the case 

 of death. Economic conditions, how- 

 ever, were such that they could not 

 afford to pay premiums, no matter 

 how urgently the protection was 

 needed. In response to this need, ; 

 Country Life brought out and made - 

 available its so-called "Term to Age 

 65" policy. This policy enabled the 

 applicant to obtain complete protec- 

 tion through a term insurance policy 

 at an exceptionally low rate and un- : 

 der the contract convert his policy at ;' 

 any time before he reached 65, to , 

 some other standard form more 

 adapted to his particular needs. 



■-■•'.-; Know Farmer's Needs 



Today the agents of Country Life 

 Insurance company number about 

 3,200 individuals, located in virtually 

 every county in Illinois. In each 

 county, in addition, where there is an 

 organized Farm Bureau, this Bureau 

 acts for the company in the capacity 

 of general agent. The individuals in- 

 clude general and special agents, the 

 former devoting their full time to life 

 insurance work, the latter working on 

 a part time basis. A majority of these 

 general and special agents, either are 

 farmers at the present time, or they 

 have been farmers at some period 

 during their lives. This type of agent 

 has been found to be the most sue- ;: 

 cessful for the reason that he under- 

 stands the purposes for which the 

 farmer needs life insurance, he under- 

 stands the problems of the farmer 

 from a standpoint of paying premi-. 

 ums, and he is able therefore to 

 select the most equitable and advan- 

 tageous contract for his prospect, and 

 the one which will in all probability 

 be of the most value to the policy- 

 holder. 



By the end of 1931, the Country 

 Life Insurance program was so far 

 advanced that it had come to the fore- 

 front among the largest and most 

 successful of Illinois companies, and 

 during the year 1932 it gained the 

 distinction of making the largest pro- 

 portional gain in life insurance of any 

 life company in the United States. 



One of the factors in Country Life's 

 success, which has attracted nation- 

 wide attention among life insurance 

 executives, is its amazing mortality 

 record. During 1932 this record of 

 death claims amounted to only about 

 one-fourth of the average expect- 

 ancy^that is, death claims totalled 

 numerically about one-fourth of what 

 the average would be in the entire 

 United States. This is due to the 

 sound policy of the medical depart- 

 ment of the company under the di- 

 rection of Dr. John A. Boland.' ":;;. 



