Duck Dynasty: Dan Amos in front of a mural at the headquarters of American Family Life Insurance Company. The company's mascot can be found everywhere here. IMAGE CREDIT: KENDRICK BRINSON FOR FORTUNE
34 years in the same company: that's not a long time from a macro perspective, and the world is a different place today than it was in 1990. The president of the United States at that time was George Herbert Walker Bush. The Soviet Union is still there, and China is just emerging as a global superpower. At that time, the Internet had not yet reached every household in the United States, and it would be decades before smartphones appeared and disrupted the way we lived. At the time, Facebook, Google, Amazon, or ChatGPT didn't show up.
In 1990, Dan Amos, chairman and CEO of American Family Life Insurance Company (Aflac), began running the one-of-a-kind life insurance company founded by his father and two uncles. When Amos took over the company, the family business didn't have a mascot yet. In 2000, Amos launched a TV commercial for the company's duck mascot screaming, which later became a pop culture phenomenon that changed the way all insurance was sold.
During that 34-year period, Amos' family business became a Fortune 500 company in the U.S., with revenues of $18.7 billion in 2023. During his tenure, its annual sales increased sevenfold. At the end of March, the company's share price was about $85, up from $1 per share in 1990 (after split adjustments).
Recently, Amos sat in the company's square headquarters building in Columbus, Georgia, and said to me, "I've been through this. His ancestors built the building in 1975. The 72-year-old Amos is now the fifth-longest tenured CEO of a Fortune 500 company. [Warren Buffett, 93, of Berkshire Hathaway, is the longest-serving CEO.] ]
This is a huge and rare achievement, especially given that the average tenure of a CEO of a Fortune 500 company is only seven years. Amos has long since surpassed the traditional (and some companies-mandated) retirement age of 65, outlived many of his contemporaries, and he has witnessed the retirement or resignation of many potential successors, including his sons. So far, he's used to global turmoil: "He's navigated the pandemic, the changing interest rate environment and the product mix shifts," said John Barnich, an analyst at investment bank Piper Sandler in charge of American Family Life and other insurers. ”
Despite Silicon Valley billionaires' desire to live like vampires through biohacking, no CEO can achieve immortality or work all the time. Amos's tenure is nearing its end and not just beginning, although he, like Warren Buffett, clearly enjoys his job and plans to continue working as soon as his body allows. "When I retire, I've only been able to catch so many fish," Amos said. It's a boring life. ”
His company was also aging, and its previous innovations were showing limitations. Since 2019, annual sales of American home life insurance companies have continued to shrink, down more than $6 billion from a peak of $25.4 billion in 2012. 70% of America's family life insurance company's profits come from the Japanese market, and its core customers in Japan are aging and dying at an alarming rate. In the U.S., the company primarily sells "supplemental" insurance that is the icing on the cake but not strictly essential. Companies face regulatory scrutiny, changing customer attitudes, and the fundamental challenge of selling expensive non-essential goods to inflation-hit consumers.
On top of that, the long tenure of the company's CEO inevitably raises questions about how he plans to keep the company thriving after he leaves office. Cathy Seifert, an insurance industry analyst at CFRA Research, a market research firm, points out that longevity brings stability. But "Are you standing still?" Or do you want to stay up-to-date and dynamic? ”
IMHO, American Family Life Insurance has always been unique as a company. The company is headquartered in the heart of Georgia, on the border of Alabama, but most of its sales come from the Japanese market. It is a family business that has gone through two CEOs in its 69-year history – Dan and his uncle John – but now there are no heirs of the Amos family waiting to succeed them. While the company's mascot has huge popularity, it rarely sells insurance directly to consumers in the United States.
American Family Life Insurance Company sells supplemental coverage, such as disability, accident, dental, or vision coverage, in the U.S., which your employer may offer when you sign up for annual benefits. As a result, in the United States, American home life insurance companies rely primarily on third parties such as employers and contractor insurance brokers to sell their products.
A key challenge to the growth of the company's core business in the U.S. is the rising cost of living. Americans who buy a car or home usually need to insure their car or house, but in the face of hyperinflation, the company's insurance products are relatively luxurious for cash-strapped potential customers.
Amos acknowledged that inflation "has always been a concern for companies". But in 2023, U.S. sales from American family life insurance companies are up 5%, and he notes that it could have been worse. "I lived through the administration of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter," he said. He referred to the record "stagflation" of the late 70s of the 20th century. "There was not a single time when inflation could compare to what it was then."
Amos's office has been through it all. The overall style of the office is very traditional in the style of a boys' club: dark wood, carpeting, paintings of his two children (long grown) on the walls, and a bronze wooden book stand, duck-shaped, of course, on the table. Amos, a polite elder from the American South, loved the opportunity to tell stories, had blonde hair, round tortoiseshell glasses, and had the fashion of executives of his time before Mark Zuckerberg: suits, casual shoes, decorative scarves, etc. Amos has a duck print on his tie (according to one colleague, as he does in all his ties), and every time you step out of the elevator in the company's headquarters building, you're almost guaranteed to see a giant poster of a duck or a work of art or a stuffed animal. Even the blue sign of the American Family Life Insurance Company at the top of the building has the image of a duck. The company's headquarters remains the tallest building in Columbus.
But if the first glance at the company's headquarters would make you think it was designed specifically for ducks, in fact, it is like an older, stranger mecca for the company's founding family. There is a multi-storey parking lot outside the headquarters, topped by a now-corrupt house, built by the uncle and predecessor of the current CEO, John Amos. On either side of the important headquarters entrance, portraits of past and present members of the Amos family hang out, each dressed in a suit with a different era style.
As Fortune magazine wrote in a 2004 feature, in 1955, Amos's father, Paul, and his uncles, John and Bill, moved from Florida to Georgia to create an insurance company. The article was hung on the wall of Amos' office. (The company was originally called American Family Life Insurance Co., but later changed "Insurance" to "Assurance" and eventually evolved into the acronym Aflac.) ）
From left: Paul, John and Bill Amos, co-founders of American Family Life Insurance Company, photographed in 1967. IMAGE CREDIT: COURTESY OF AFLAC
Amos currently holds 0.5% of the company's shares and 1.3% of the voting shares. Now, he has turned the family business into a behemoth with more than 12,700 full-time employees worldwide. But its sales model, especially its reliance on independent contractors, can sometimes lead to legal troubles. Six years ago, the company faced a series of lawsuits alleging that it used deceptive recruitment tactics to force employees to sell products without customer authorization and misclassified employees as independent contractors. American Family Life has denied the allegations of three lawsuits that have been dismissed or gone to arbitration, and Amos is now silent about the legal issues facing the company: "We did have some problems, but in all cases, we ended up being very determined." ”
He is equally dismissive of the yet-to-be-determined federal regulatory reform. The latest reform package may require some of the company's U.S. customers to pay taxes on the benefits they receive. But arguably the company faces an even bigger problem: In an era when people could buy almost everything with just a few clicks, the company was using what Seiffert called an "outdated distribution system" in the heavily regulated (and technologically outdated) life insurance industry.
"Consumer preferences have shifted to online shopping," she said. I don't think many life insurance companies, including American Home Life Insurance Companies, have been successful in meeting this challenge. ”
Amos is not personally against technology: he told me that the invention of the smartphone "changed my life" and allowed him to extend his tenure as CEO without missing out on his obligations to his family. But Amos noted that he is skeptical of selling U.S. products from companies using smartphone apps or other low-touch, high-tech platforms that are friendly to millennials and Gen Z. The non-essential nature of supplemental insurance, Amos explains, means that "you have to sit down and explain to [the customer] why they need it."
When I told a Japanese friend that I was going to Georgia to interview the CEO of American Family Life Insurance Company, she was puzzled and said, "That's a Japanese company, isn't it?" The company that uses ducks as mascots? ”
In fact, while the company's traditional headquarters are in the southern United States, the Amos brothers' company has become very large in Japan. In 1970, John traveled to Osaka, Japan, for the World's Fair, and he found that people often wore medical masks in public.
Half a century later, a global pandemic has made mask-wearing a universal health habit around the world. At the time, John Amos saw a business opportunity: he believed that any culture with this kind of public health awareness would rush to buy more insurance. And he has already invented the appropriate product.
In 1957, after the death of the brothers' father from cancer, John Amos saw a business opportunity in the family's losses: What would happen if American Family Life Insurance Company sold "cancer insurance"? Diagnosed customers receive benefits that cover costs that are not covered by regular health insurance, including hiring a home health aide, travel expenses for treatment, and paying for hotel room expenses when relatives visit.
In the U.S., the initial growth of American family life insurance companies was driven by the sale of insurance to smaller employers, but in Japan, as the average life expectancy of the population increased, the incidence of cancer began to rise dramatically in the 50s of the 20th century, and Amos was very successful. Currently, more than 58% of Japan's existing cancer policies come from American Family Life Insurance Company as it prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary, according to Moody's.
But now, that dominance is a mixed blessing. Japan's economy has been in trouble for several years, and the yen continues to weaken. And the more important threat to the future of American family life insurance companies and Japan is that their customers are aging and slowly passing away. More than 10% of Japan's population is over the age of 80; At the end of February this year, Japan announced that the number of newborns in 2023 had fallen for the eighth consecutive year, hitting a record low. By 2070, its population will decrease by 30%.
With cancer rates soaring in Japan, the core cancer business of American Family Life Insurance Company has brought some sad good news to this demographic trend. Investment bank Piper Sandler's Barnich noted: "Cancer is a disease associated with aging. "As we get older, more people will develop cancer, and it's certainly reasonable to assume that more people will take the opportunity to buy insurance to cover cancer-related expenses.
Of course, aging customers are also more likely to get sick and need to make claims. For American family life insurance companies, or any life insurance company, the company's growth depends on selling insurance to healthier customers who pay for protection that is statistically unlikely. American Family Life Insurance is taking some steps to do just that: In September 2023, the company launched an improved supplementary insurance product for younger, healthier Japanese consumers, Amos said, "with the idea that in the future we will provide additional coverage as they age."
He adds that there is also a secret weapon that has never been a secret: "The company's mascot, the duck, is very popular in Japan, which helps us to impress our younger customers. ”
A few days after I met Amos, there was an issue of Danger Edge! (Jeopardy!) aired a tip: "The company claims to have gone from 11 percent to 94 percent of its brand awareness in 14 years after a duck uttered the company's name." Of course, the correct answer is, "What does Aflac stand for?" ”
The company's obnoxious mascot, is Dan Amos's pride in his profession and brings him joy. Amos said he had "bet his whole life on a duck." In late 1999, nearly a decade after Amos became CEO, American family life insurance companies needed a morale boost. Advertising agencies approached him with two different TV commercials: one for the traditional, serious TV star Ray Romano; Another scenario is a duck quacking and clumsily uttering the company's initials.
Amos chose Duck, a decision that has affected the entire life insurance industry and the way the product is sold until today. This, Seiffer recalls, heralded the beginning of a "bizarre insurance advertising model" that is now ubiquitous. The Crooked Duck of American Family Life Insurance Company and the Talking Gecko of the U.S. Government Employee Insurance Company (launched a few months ago) cleared the way for the likes of LiMu Emu of Liberty Mutual, Mayhem of Allstate, Jake of State Farm and Flo of Progressive, which they used for 16 years.
In the first three years after the mascot's release, American Family Life Insurance doubled its sales. "We made a risky choice, and it was well worth it," Amos said. ”
The success of American Family Life Insurance's television ad may have inadvertently exposed the limitations of the company's actual product mix. Amos took the initiative to break the news that people sometimes contact the company's insurance agents to consult about property insurance or other products that the company does not offer. But he wants to move forward with future expansion plans "in an orderly manner." "The most helpful thing in my career has been staying focused," Amos said. Everyone has their own ideas, and too many ideas can get you off track. ”
Although American Family Life Insurance has a quirky duck as its mascot, cancer insurance is still its core business, and cancer is part of the Amos family's history.
Amos' grandfather, uncle John and son-in-law (who died in the summer of 2023 at the age of 48) all died of cancer. "Cancer is terrible," Amos said. I find it everywhere. (In 1995, he set up a foundation to raise money for the treatment of childhood cancer.) ）
So, as the CEO of American Family Life Insurance Company, Amos is no stranger to death to date. Over the past 34 years, he has created a wealth for himself, his family and investors through the company's products, which allow customers to accept the final outcome of their lives with peace of mind. And he knew that in order to continue its success for decades after he left, the company would have to deal with aging and looming death from its customers and himself.
The conversation is now resonating across the United States: 81-year-old President Joseph Biden is being challenged by former President Donald Trump, 77, and is now making headlines expressing concerns about the mental health of aging leaders.
A few days before I interviewed Amos in February, a special counsel report called Biden an "old man with a poor memory," which sparked media discussion about whether his health was fit for re-election. While Amos is nearly ten years younger than Biden, he is clearly unhappy with the political discussion that rages on the issue of age: When I asked Amos about his succession plans, he mentioned Biden.
"The more you talk to the public, the less effective you are as a CEO," Amos said. Now they are besieging Biden for the same purpose, and if he reveals a little information, it will cause a frenzied discussion. ”
A success in Japan: the store of an American family life insurance company in Tokyo, Japan. Although the company is headquartered in Columbus, Georgia, USA, most of its operations are in Japan. IMAGE CREDIT: KIYOSHI OTA—BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES
Amos joined American Family Life Insurance Company as a salesman at the age of 23, and he wanted people to know that he earned it all by his own efforts, not by nepotism. Amos told me: "I chose to go into sales because it has objective evaluation criteria. Generally speaking, as long as your numbers hit your target, you're doing well – and the same goes for CEOs. ”
Amos said he still wants people to judge him based on his performance. Despite the recent decline in the company's revenue, the company's performance has been outstanding. During his tenure, American family life insurance companies have returned more than 15% of their shareholders on an annualized basis, compared to more than 10% on the S&P 500 Index over the same period. "As we get older, we have to be more closely supervised," Amos admitted. But he is still healthy, and Amos reiterated that he has told investors several times over the past decade: "I expect to lead the company for a few more years." ”
After Amos's eventual retirement, it remains unknown who will succeed him. Succession planning is "my primary responsibility," he said, and he said only board members need to know what the plan is. Amos explains: "I think it's very important to have a plan. To avoid being a "lame duck," he noted, "you can't set a date" or discuss succession planning publicly.
Until 2017, it was widely believed that Amos planned to hand over the CEO position to his son and the company's then-president, Paul Amos II. But like the ups and downs of the TV series "Succession," his son left the firm to join a private equity firm. Amos Sr. said, "Paul wanted to do his own thing. (Paul Amos II did not respond to a request for comment.) ）
Since his son left American Family Life Insurance, Dan Amos has never publicly said who might be his successor. In 2017, Fred Crawford, the company's president and chief operating officer, was once considered the most likely to take over as chief executive, but he announced his retirement in November at the age of 60. "If I quit at such a young age, I would have gone crazy," Amos said. But that's what he wants. ”
Regardless of when and how a company's leadership changes, it's not as simple as a career change. For Amos, putting his company in the hands of outsiders is an inevitable but painful loss.
"I think it's because of my family ties that I'm a better CEO," Amos said. It's like my child. ”
It's a bittersweet reality for Amos, whose career and family legacy have convinced tens of millions of clients to prepare for the worst that fate can bring. But he admits that there are some outcomes that no insurance can avoid.
"It's part of life," Amos said. I know that life can't be set the same. ”
The longest-tenured CEO
The average tenure of a CEO of a Fortune 500 company is seven years, but the four longest-serving company leaders have served for decades. (The creator of the company has an advantage.) ）
Warren S. E. Buffett, 93, has led the multinational holding company Berkshire Hathaway (ranked 7th on the 2023 Fortune US 500) for 54 years.
Albert S. H. Nahamed, 82, founded Watsco (No. 495), a distributor of air conditioning, heating and refrigerator equipment, and has led the company for 51 years.
Leonard S. S. Schleifeld, 71, co-founded the biotechnology company Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (No. 339) and has led the company for 36 years.
Stanley S. M. Bergman, 73, has led medical and dental supplies distributor Henry Schein (No. 325) for 35 years. (Fortune Chinese Network)
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