A major milestone was reached in the history of National Life this week when we reached $100 billion of life insurance in-force.
We’ve been selling policies for 167 years, of course, and early in our history the growth of our book of business was fairly modest. We reached $1 million in 1853 and $5 million in 1869.
But the second half of 20th century and now well into the 21st our growth has been steady and spectacular.
We hit $1 billion in 149, $10 billion in 1980 and $40 billion in 2000.
Then look at this growth:
$52 billion in 2005
$62 billion in 2010
$83 billion in 2014
$93 billion in 2015
By any measure, that’s truly impressive. “Thank you for all you do to protect the lives and financial security of our customers,” CEO Mehran Assadi wrote to employees this week in announcing the accomplishment.