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By 1976 Sam Gaglio had not only changed his editorial staff completely, but managed to expand it a little, relieving himself of some of the routine assignments. There were four writers all together. In 1970, Gaglio had hired Joseph Razza as an associate editor to replace Willard Bellais. During the next two years, associate editors Wallace Longstreth and Edward Keenan came aboard, and Julia Cameron joined the staff as an assistant editor in 1974. More and more Gaglio left the interview trips and rounds of industry meetings to these newer writers, usually attending only the annual MDRT meeting and the NALU conventions himself. Nick Preston also had a new associate, David Carson, with whom to share the unending quest for advertisers.
The editorial focus, however, remained offering readers innovative ideas for increasing their productivity and positioning themselves in the marketplace for maximum results. This overriding objective kept the pressure on the writers to turn out a wide assortment of sales articles every month. In 1976, the magazine published 99 articles in the "Selling" section. A glimpse of the contributors and their topics gives a good clue about what kinds of marketing ideas interested life underwriters in the nation’s bicentennial year: "Career Women—An Overlooked Insurance Market," by Patricia Carlson; "Life Insurance in Qualified Retirement Plans," by Fred Goodwin; "Reaching the Blue-Collar Market through Group Sales," by Howard Johnson, and "Solving Prospecting Problems in A Small Town," by Hunter Mann. Many of these topics, of course, could be as timely today as they were 25 years ago.
Many agents during this period were breaking away from the image of ringing doorbells or scheduling house calls and closing the sale around the kitchen table. Admittedly, having clients make appointments to see agents at their offices often meant investing in more elegant office space at a better address, but it was a more efficient use of time, freed up the evenings and lent the agent a certain professional cachet. After all, doctors no longer made house calls and lawyers were usually consulted at their offices.
Since clients sometimes resisted the change, LAN’s readers were interested in ways to get people to come to the office. "Approximately 70 percent of all my interviews are conducted at my office," declared Lonnie Johnson of Jackson, Miss., in an April 1976 article. "To persuade prospects to come to me, I inform them we have a nice office with a conference room and audio-visual aids that can help us in our discussions about their financial needs. If they seem reluctant, I tell them we can accomplish much more in a shorter period of time because there will be no interruptions."
LAN was tapping the Million Dollar Round Table as a rich source, selecting sales ideas of general interest from top producers on the MDRT’s annual program. These capsulated versions of their presentations usually appeared in the August issue. Typical of these approaches was that of Seattle’s Arlen Prentice on how to prepare an estate plan and administration book for principal clients by compiling and summarizing their personal, legal, financial and business affairs. "We use the book to demonstrate our service to prospects during our first interview and to tell attorneys, accountants and others when prospecting for referrals, what we do, how we work and how our clients benefit beyond insurance purchases," Prentice explained.
Accommodating the Reader
Largely due to Gaglio’s journalistic integrity, unremitting demand for high standards and his hands-on management style, the magazine steadily improved in every respect. During the 1970s, LAN became more selective in content, better organized, more attractive and altogether more reader-friendly. Type faces were large and easily legible on good quality paper. Readers opened the magazine to an ample two-page table of contents spread, with blurbs that summarized all the articles. There was no doubt the life underwriters were getting their money’s worth. Managers came to rely on the magazine for teaching sales concepts and many agencies added the magazine to their resource libraries. LAN began cataloguing articles according to MDRT’s Information/Retrieval index, printing the codes in the table of contents and providing a cross reference in the annual index, as well as at the ends of articles, which allowed managers and agents to put their hands on a subject in a matter of minutes.
Gaglio also introduced the practice of clustering the lead sales articles around a theme. He divided the selling section into an introductory "Special Section" followed by a "Potpourri of Sales Articles." The January 1977 issue featured a special section on pension plans with "Sales Opportunities Offered by ERISA," by John Neighbors; "Ten Questions that Precede A Pension Plan," by Gerald Fischman," and "A Few Rules in Selling Life Insurance for Qualified Plans," by Paul Devore. Often the cover art drew attention to the theme. "Three Articles on Multiline Selling," announced the May 1977 cover, with a highly abstract illustration of a family posing before their house and car.
Though text and ads shared many pages, with issues running 166 pages, there was still room to give NALU a whopping 75 pages (including Jim Douds’ "NALU on the Legislative Front") and 36 pages to industry news. Space devoted to state and local association activities had gotten down to an occasional short article, such as "Atlanta Association Enhances Its Image with Televised Ads" and "Florida’s Congressional Luncheon," and a one-page spread of photos, called "Around the USA." The photos ranged from the Boston association’s officers handing over a check for renovating the Hatch Memorial Shell for the Boston Pops summer concert series to Dr. Milton Friedman, winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize for economics, addressing the Miami CLU chapter.
There was plenty of industry news to print. The problem was what to select. The industry had grown to gigantic proportions, with 1,890 legal reserve life insurance companies in business in the U.S. employing almost two million people at the end of 1979. NALU membership also peaked that year at 140,000. The amount of insurance in force totaled $3.2 trillion. Ordinary life accounted for $1.6 trillion of it and $1.4 trillion was in group. For the first time in its 100 years in the marketplace, industrial insurance began to decline, dropping from $39 billion in force in 1969 to $37.8 billion in 1979. Such sales figures were forcing debit agents, who began calling themselves home service agents, to change their image and their wares. Their companies began developing more competitive ordinary life insurance policies, though face amounts remained small and they retained their characteristic neighborhood outreach distribution system and monthly collections. During the next two decades, LAN’s coverage of this segment of the industry lessened as these agents’ methods became less distinguishable from the activities of ordinary agents.
The 1970s gave the life insurance industry its last moments of anything resembling stability. The decade of the ’80s ushered in a period of unprecedented innovation on the shifting sands of economic change. Rising inflation threatened policyholders’ assets and companies’ solvency, and the consumerist movement pioneered by Ralph Nader had created wary, more discriminating buyers who at least believed they were informed on the uses of the various financial vehicles. The success of the Atlanta-based A.L. Williams organization, which quickly trained thousands of part-time agents in sales techniques calculated to induce people to "buy term and invest the difference" (in Williams’ own affiliated companies’ term policies and mutual funds) was symptomatic of the stolid image whole life insurance had acquired in an inflated economy.
In an attempt to compete with mutual funds or even just with high rates on government bonds and bank deposits, life companies began developing such investment-oriented hybrids as universal life and variable life insurance. Another new topic for LAN to watch in the 1980s was an absolute epidemic of mergers and acquisitions, some involving Dutch, French and Italian purchasers. Many old U.S. companies ceased to operate independently and some familiar names disappeared altogether.
A New Regime
There were some changes taking place at NALU headquarters as well. Jack E. Bobo, an agent for New York Life in Phoenix, Ariz., succeeded Carney Smith as NALU’s executive vice president in January 1979. Noting that Bobo was an experienced life insurance practitioner, a persuasive speaker and writer and a particularly articulate champion of the career life underwriter, LAN informed its readers, "He has served the industry in many capacities and is active in educational, church and community affairs." Bobo would serve as the association’s top manager until he retired in 1994, handing over the office to another top New York Life producer, Bill Regan of San Francisco.
Sam Gaglio announced his retirement in the fall of 1980 and on Gaglio’s recommendation, Bobo appointed Ed Keenan LAN’s new editor and business manager. The following spring Keenan and his staff had the pleasure of occupying more spacious quarters in a new three-story wing added to the rear of the NALU headquarters building, after a frustratingly protracted construction project. (The magazine staff is still there, pending the association’s relocation to Merrifield, Va., in 2000.) The editorial staff remained fairly stable during this period, although there were some occasional shifts. Nicholas Wood was hired as assistant editor in the spring of 1979. During the early 1980s Barbara Pingitore, Peter Kilcullen, George Norris and Melissa Morrison served the editorial department in various capacities, though Kilcullen and Morrison drifted more into production after the arrival of computers.
Although he continued writing reams of copy for the magazine, after 1986 Norris was set to work producing a history of the association to be published before September 1989, the beginning of NALU’s centenary year. The book, Voices from the Field, is still widely read and valued. Later, Chuck Jones joined the staff as an assistant editor and after Longstreth’s retirement, Steven Sullivan came aboard in January 1985. After Kilcullen’s departure, William Cooper and Karen Greenblatt successively took over his duties editing and coordinating copy, while Dee Cohen joined the production staff and eventually became art director with Angela Jackson as design coordinator.
Keenan was innovative. The magazine continued to improve dramatically in appearance after he took over. Covers, helped by the presence of two professionally-trained magazine designers, especially showed off LAN’s willingness to invest in a more contemporary approach to magazine graphics. Cover stories and feature articles gradually began to show the work of more adventurous artists’ talent as well. A few years after assuming the stewardship, Keenan installed word processors, allowing a relieved, if somewhat confused, staff of writers to abandon their typewriters and start striking over and moving blocks.
As far as content, Keenan instituted a monthly column for the association’s presidents, called "The President’s Page," and another, "Across the Board" to allow each of the 12 members of the NALU Board of Trustees to air their views in the magazine. Since many of NALU’s officers proved to be reluctant writers, it was up to Peter Kilcullen and later George Norris to nurse the columns along each month, but the columns gave the members some pertinent messages they had never received before.
Keenan also engaged John Phillips, who had been associated with National Public Radio, to produce tape-cassette digest versions of each issue. The series was called LAN Scan. After reducing selected sales articles to a manageable length, Phillips arranged for the contributors to record their articles at local recording studios. In a stroke of genius, he brought the skilled orator Carney Smith out of retirement to read a monthly digest of industry and association news. Although the cassettes never made much money, they were very popular with busy agents. They loved "hearing the magazine" in their cars on the way to appointments.
In time, Phillips left the magazine staff to develop for NALU an audio-visual department for producing high quality materials that enabled the association to supply many of its publicity and educational needs in-house. He went on to become an NALU vice president whose duties included helping to program the annual convention, including its entertainment and keynote speakers.
For the first time since the 1920s, membership in local associations dropped. The reduction was substantial in some places. When NALU’s membership campaign ended in June 1981, the total came to 131,000. This heralded the beginning of a pattern.
There were many reasons for the sudden decline in circulation, nearly 9,000 in one year. One large company, the Metropolitan, declined to continue subsidizing its agents’ affiliation with life underwriters associations and a bunch of others had begun reducing field forces with an eye toward developing alternate marketing systems. The agents themselves began to diversify their interests. Not only did large numbers of agents study for securities licenses, but hundreds if not thousands preferred to be called financial planners. To them, the tradition-minded life underwriters associations had lost some relevance. And, as always, there were many agents who might benefit immeasurably from association membership but neglected to join.
In 1986 NALU purchased the controversial life insurance newsletter Probe from Longman’s, the old established London publishing house (Jane Austen’s publisher,) which had acquired Probe along with the purchase of a Chicago firm that published a number of business journals. The asking price was $25,000. In December Probe appeared for the first time as an insert with LAN, edited by William Macfarlane, former editor of the National Underwriter’s publications. Don Barnes had been the newsletter’s most recent editor. The idea was to provide a more freewheeling forum to discuss industry issues, which was often beyond the scope of LAN. Noting that the newsletter had always been "a happy combination of watchdog and gadfly," Keenan assured LAN readers, "It will be bound into Life Association News but not bound by it." Continuing as contributing editors were George Joseph and H. Kirke Lewis.
Macfarlane guided Probe until 1988 when Sam Gaglio agreed to see it through the presses. While Probe certainly enlivened the pages of LAN, Jack Bobo eventually grew tired of what he considered a source of contention and controversy emanating from NALU. By that time Keenan had retired. Probe was sold to John Angle, former CEO of The Guardian, and former NALU president Alan Press, general agent for The Guardian in New York City. Press invited Keenan to become a partner and the newsletter’s editor. The newsletter continues to publish today under the ownership of Fred R. Kissling, Jr., of Lexington, Ky.
The Changing of the Guard
Keenan remained editor of LAN throughout most of the 1980s, relinquishing responsibility for the editorial aspects in 1988 when Ian MacKenzie was named editor. MacKenzie was an experienced insurance journalist who had been on the staff of National Underwriter, editor of the Florida Underwriter, and worked with the public relations department of John Hancock in Boston. With MacKenzie directing the publication and Preston and Carson’s departure, Keenan became business manager to focus on rebuilding the advertising department with the new account executives Teresa Bonnema and Meredith Moore. By 1990, Keenan had retired and MacKenzie took complete charge of all operations involved with producing the magazine.
Soon after taking over, MacKenzie ended the "Across the Board" column, ceased LAN Scan, and abandoned the on-site interview method of developing sales articles. Each issue still had a theme with a rotating editorial system in which one writer took responsibility in turn for developing suitable articles. But the editors relied more on telephone interviews than on personal visits to create feature articles on such topics as product development and various marketing strategies, such as niche marketing or selling to retired people or business owners.
For the first time, staff members’ bylines appeared over their stories. The editors therefore became eligible for writing and design awards. Steve Sullivan won a gold award in 1993 from the Society of National Association Publications for his December 1992, piece, "The Rise and Fall of A.L. Williams"—the first in a string of SNAP and other awards conferred on LAN’s writers in the 1990s. In 1994, the whole magazine received a gold SNAP award for a single topic issue with its initial "The Miracle of Insurance" cover package.
Sales articles continued to be derived from the proceedings of the MDRT to some extent, but more often the writers edited manuscripts (solicited or unsolicited) from experts in the field.
Gradually, coverage of NALU activities and such annual events as GAMA’s LAMP convention and AALU’s annual meeting were reduced or dropped altogether and local association news no longer appeared in the pages of LAN. At the same time, although it didn’t yet occupy a great deal of space, industry news received serious attention.
With an operating budget of $11 million and 108 employees at its Washington headquarters, NALU was all geared up to celebrate its 100th convention in September 1989.
Beginning in September 1988, LAN began publishing a series of 12 articles on the history of the organization based on Norris’ research. The book, Voices from the Field, an elegant 385-page volume, went to press in April 1989 and was ready for distribution at the centennial convention in Boston that September. LAN’s September cover displayed a great birthday cake drawing attention to Norris’ cover story, "Happy 100th Birthday, NALU."
With the addition of Rivka Tadjer, who had joined a year earlier and quickly risen to become managing editor, for a brief shining moment the staff was enjoying the luxury of six fulltime writers when LAN published its 1,000th issue in January 1990. "There are few magazines in any field that have survived so long, which have served the same audience so consistently and so well," MacKenzie reminded the readers. "While the magazine has changed its format a number of times, its design innumerable times, and its style more than once, it has remained faithful to its original vision: to educate the agent, to inform the agent, to encourage and inspire the agent."
Soliciting advertising for a trade journal such as LAN was becoming more of a challenge than it had been before the 1980s, primarily because companies were continually reducing advertising budgets for the printed media at the same time as magazines were forced to raise their rates to meet production costs. It was simply a case of a tighter squeeze all around, but the product was good enough to keep the loyalty of most of its advertisers.
In 1991, MacKenzie named Afsoon Namini director of advertising, and she added Sandra McNeil and David Foxwell to the staff. They made a good team and by 1997 LAN could claim an income from advertising and circulation (part of each member’s dues is assigned as subscription income) of nearly $5 million.
MacKenzie resigned to take an executive position with the National Underwriter Co. in Cincinnati in the summer of 1994. In September, NALU’s CEO Bill Regan announced the appointment of his successor, Jeffrey Kosnett, senior associate editor of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine and a journalist of 20 years experience. Regan named Afsoon Namini publisher and also promoted Steve Sullivan to deputy editor. In November, Joe Razza retired after 25 years on the staff. Apart from Sullivan, the remaining writers at this point were George Norris, Chuck Jones and Kimberly Lankford.
Kosnett was a breath of fresh air both for the staff and for NALU. With his independent journalism background and hands-on management style reminiscent of Sam Gaglio, he easily gained the loyalty of the staff. Moreover, he devoted enormous care to the editorial content and quality of writing, working many hours of overtime to assure that the readers got only the best, as well as writing his share of the copy—drawing on his knowledge of investments and financial services. High readability, accuracy and comprehensive treatment of financial and marketing subjects were the priorities. The writers soon learned how much reporting a professionally written feature story entails—a challenge but a pleasure for ace writers like Jones, Lankford, Norris and Sullivan, who were unleashed to write the kinds of stories that in earlier times LAN either avoided, never thought to try, or found itself forced to downplay on the insistence of the magazine’s superiors. Ethics, for example, the subject of Sullivan’s June 1996, cover story, was a no-no not long before. The same was true with agent-company relations, agents’ lawsuits against companies, and reporting on the evidence that perhaps banks, once able to sell insurance because of court decisions, wouldn’t steamroller insurance agents out of business after all.
NALU found the money for an upgraded computer system, which attracted Kimberly Perikles to LAN from a local magazine production outsourcing company. As editorial coordinator, she introduced efficient procedures for tracking the flow of copy, assuring accuracy and quality at every stage of production, and helping the editors eliminate carbons and red pencils in favor of making page layouts and corrections right on the computer screen. LAN also progressed graphically, with Kosnett and art directors Dee (Cohen) Lichtenstein, and Angie Jackson—who succeeded her—assuring that professionally produced photos and quality artwork would attract readers to the carefully crafted feature articles. The magazine’s goal became to design its pages, not just print them—an essential part of contemporary magazine publishing, for any audience.
LAN’s reporters, more of them possessed of experience at mass-circulation newspapers and magazines, handled industry news with greater rigor and scrutiny. Readers learned, if you read it in LAN, that’s probably the way it happened. Kosnett also updated and introduced some new departments. One of Chuck Jones’ columns, "The Jury Box," discussed new products and Kosnett’s personal column, "The Business of Life," offered opinions and helped readers maximize their position in the marketplace.
LAN belatedly began to cover technology effectively, as Joe Wilcox, a high-tech writer by trade, joined as an associate editor and instituted the column "Technology Bytes" (now "Digital Agent.") On the lighter side, a group of four regulars began "The Cost of Doing Business," a humorous view of the occupational hazards of being a financial advisor that Sullivan edited and passed on to Norris after his departure.
Inevitably, the magazine was obliged to undergo more staff shuffling. After 12 years on the writing staff, Sullivan resigned to take a promotion and become editor of the actuaries’ trade magazine, Contingencies, in 1997, where he produces an outstanding magazine about a difficult field. Karen Levine, a banking and real estate reporter, replaced Kimberly Lankford, who left to join the staff at Kiplinger’s. Levine later moved to California, and Wilcox left to work for computer-related publications such as C/Net’s online mag, news.com, though still freelancing for LAN.
In November 1998, LAN lured National Underwriter senior editor Amy Friedman from New York City to join the staff as deputy editor. She immediately set to work upgrading LAN’s coverage of securities, regulation, and distribution, as well as tapping her enormous files of financial-industry sources for news stories. Kosnett found the money—or it found him—to contract with some regular freelance journalists. Bylines like Eric Yoder and Juan Hovey, also found in other magazines and newspapers, began to appear two or three times a year, allowing the permanent reporting and editing staff to spend more time on their own assignments.
Staff reporters also began to cover new products and financial services in depth. Jones created an annual long-term care survey and in 1996, LAN teamed with The VARDS report to publish the annual "Ultimate Variable Annuity Survey," with data on hundreds of annuity contracts.
In 1999, knowing that NALU was in the process of changing its own name, Kosnett and new NALU chief executive officer Arthur Kraus determined to rename LAN for the year 2000. During the year, NALU’s board members and its national council voted to allow the association to name the magazine something besides Life Association News. In choosing the name Advisor Today, Kosnett pointed out that it is a name that speaks directly to the reader rather than to a group or an association. The magazine hired a design firm to work on the look that readers will see in January 2000 and beyond.
The word "life" is thus scheduled to drop from the magazine’s title. And in this age of the emerging financial advisor, LAN serves a more diversified readership of practitioners in the financial services field. But it has by no means abandoned its initial purpose announced by Ernest Clark and Walter Sammis in September 1906, as "a monthly journal devoted to the interests of all life insurance agents." And to a large extent its fundamental mission is the same as its owners, the newly named National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors:
"to improve the business environment, enhance the professional skills and promote the ethical conduct of agents and others engaged in insurance and related financial services who assist the public in achieving financial security and independence."
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