The NALU Joins the Industry in Legislative Battles

Keeping an ever-watchful eye on events in Washington, the agents devoted more time to the question of state versus Federal regulation. Reporting on the convention, The Insurance Field noted, "Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia told the National Association of Life Underwriters at Pittsburgh in October that the American free enterprise system could be destroyed in any one of three ways: by exorbitant taxation, by senseless and unnecessary regimentation, or by government competition with private business."[xix]

By January 1944, total applications form members of all branches of the armed forces for National Service Life Insurance had topped the $100 billion mark. "A recent check of men going overseas showed them to be insured to the extent of 98.4 percent of enlisted men and 99 percent of officers," Life Association News reported in its February issue. "In the case of the enlisted men, 90 per cent own $10,000 maximum, and the average per soldier, including the uninsured, is $9,500. Officers reported 98 per cent own the $10,000 maximum and the average per officer $9,864." These figures were to have some interesting implications for the life insurance business during the years following the war. NSLI raised everyone's expectations. Besides making people more life-insurance conscious, it conditioned them to think in terms of larger policies. Once the idea that standard, basic coverage for the average head of a household began at about $10,000 became accepted, the agents' sale was already made.

The Association's midyear meeting took place at Buffalo's Statler Hotel in March 1944. Besides continued interest in war-bond sales, the leaders of the Association gave high priority to questions regarding agency practices and agents' compensation, education and training. Again and again, throughout the war there is evidence of growing concern among the leaders of life underwriters associations that the Agency Practice Agreement was being compromised. They persisted in urging the companies not to use the war as an excuse to relax standards.

Social Security legislation, "government encroachment of the business," and other political issues also captured much of the agents' attention at this meeting. The NALU had secured the services of Lawrence A. Baker of Washington, D.C., to act as counsel for the Committee on Federal Law and Legislation. Its members reflected the industry's concern over a number of proposals in the Wagner-Murray-Dingell bill, a grand design for enlarging and extending the benefits of Social Security. To almost every proposal, the life insurance industry offered serious opposition.

The same sentiments prevailed when representatives of the life underwriters' associations met in Detroit that fall for another low-key, wartime meeting. On one point, however, the agents were not in full agreement with the rest of the industry, as Buley observes; "The National Association of Life Underwriters, at its annual meeting, gave much time to the discussion of the extension of the Social Security laws; though no sentiment existed in favor of the Wagner bill, a number of delegates, particularly form the South, feared that if it was openly opposed agents might jeopardize their chance of being brought under the old-age and survivors' insurance provisions of the law. The organization finally adopted a straddling resolution on the subject." 20

Besides Social Security, discussion again focused on agency practices, underwriter education and National Service Life Insurance. During the discussion on agent education, Clifford H. Orr of Philadelphia, chairman of the Committee on Education, proposed a program that would eventually take shape as the Life Underwriter Training Council (LUTC). Recalling the NALU's role in the founding The American College of Life Underwriters, which had done so much to dignify the field force with well-informed professionals thoroughly schooled in the principles of insurance theory, Orr observed that it was only fitting that the NALU lead the way in inaugurating a program of practical training on how to sell life insurance. Life Association News reported:

He recited the discussion in the board of trustees on the previous day when it was pointed out that last year between fifty and sixty per cent of the men and women in the business wrote under $100,000 of business and 75 per cent less than $150,000. He emphasized the desirability of concentrating on skills and techniques in life underwriter training rather than on pure education. He asked the Council to give its approval to the decision of the Board that the National Association set up a department of education and training at National Headquarters to undertake and supervise this responsibility to its membership. The Council gave its approval to this progressive move and a committee was appointed by the board to select someone to head up such a department and supervise its organization and development.[xxi]

Reconstructing what occurred at that meeting of the board, Eleanor Dowling, who later served as Rutherford's secretary, drew on Orr's recollections as well as the minutes of the meeting:

Mr. Orr has since written that "the strategy of the presentation was paradoxically both the salvation and almost the defeat of the plan …Quite understandably, many members of the Board refused to make any commitment of NALU funds for such a nebulous undertaking…The discussion continued for several hours, with the chairman simply insisting on the need for such a plan and the opportunity presented to NALU to sponsor an educational department."

In the discussion, the Board appeared to be split right down the middle. At last, Mr. Orr moved "that a sum not to exceed $2,500 be appropriated to get the proposition started, and if additional funds are needed, to place such a request before the officers and members of the Board before the Detroit convention."

The following moments were probably as dramatic as any in LUTC's history. There were seven votes for, and seven against the motion. All eyes turned to President Herbert A. Hedges, who without hesitation, cast the deciding vote in favor.[xxii][*]

The incident was typical of Hedges who was very dedicated to the cause of professionalism and an indefatigable association worker. Though perhaps no more than five foot seven, Hedges had been in the Marine Corps, and he ran his agency with military precision. A strong personality, he was anything but indecisive.

William H. Andrews, Jr., manager for Jefferson Standard Life at Greensboro, North Carolina, succeeded Hedges as president of the national organization. Andrews' career was typical of many successful agents who had weathered the depression. He was a Thirty-second Degree Mason and an active member of the Presbyterian church and his local country club. A graduate of the University of North Carolina and a founder of the Greensboro Association of Life Underwriters, Andrews had earned his Chartered Life Underwriter designation in 1936. He was generally well liked and regarded as a loyal association man. He would have the satisfaction of knowing that during his administration membership in 423 local associations totaled 37,028.

Foreword by Alan Press, 1988-1989 NALU President

Preface by Jack E. Bobo, 1989 NALU Executive Vice President

Introduction

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Laying the Foundation—A Meeting at the Parker House

Leading Figures—Ransom, Carpenter, Blodgett and Plummer

Conditions Leading to the Foundation of the NALU

Rise of Modern Life Insurance and the General Agency System

Issues and Accomplishments of the First 15 Years

Chapter 2

In the Wake of the Armstrong Investigation

A Royal Commission Investigates Life Insurance Operations in Canada

A Period of Growth and Visibility for the NALU Under Strong Leadership

The NALU Plays a Leading Role in Insurance Education

The NALU During World War I

Chapter 3

The Post-War Decade

The NALU's Extension of Activity

The Agents Move for Recognition

Chapter 4

The Depression and Aftermath

Annual Conventions and Midyear Meetings

The NALU Celebrates Its 50th Anniversary

Chapter 5

The Agents Earn Their Wings

World War II

The NALU Joins the Industry in Legislative Battles

The NALU Establishes the National Quality Award

Chapter 6

Controversies and Schisms (1946-1956)

The Foundation of LUTC

The Nola Patterson Affair

GAMC Formally Organized

Chapter 7

The NALU Goes to Washington

Dispute Over Minimum Deposit Insurance Plans

GAMC Stages First LAMP Meeting

The NALU Celebrates Its Diamond Jubilee Year

The NALU Increases Political Activity

U.S. Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee Investigate Life Insurance

The NALU Responds to Consumerist Activism

Chapter 8

The NALU Reaches the Century Mark

FTC Releases a Study Critical of the Insurance Industry

Formation of the Women Life Underwriters Conference

Drop in Local Membership

The NALU Issues Statements on AIDS

The NALU Combats a New Wave of Attacks

The NALU Celebrates a Century of Service

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[*] Dowling was on the staff at NALU headquarters form 1947 until its move to Washington in 1956. Besides serving as Rutherford's secretary, she worked as Executive Assistant to successive administrators Zalinski, Woodson and Schriver. Working closely with these men she watched the LUTC program develop from its infancy.

[xiii] Buley: The American Life Convention: 1906-1952, p. 876

[xix] the Insurance Field, LXXII, 1943, October 29.

[xx] R. Carlyle Buley, The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States: 1859-1964, Vol II, p. 1132

[xxi] O.P. cit., October 1944, p.98

[xxii] Eleanor B. Dowling, Life Underwriter Training council: A Ten Year History, LUTC, Washington, DC pp 18-19