American General Life Insurance Company

The tale of the American General Life Insurance Company, then known as American General, started in 1925. It was then that the Texas Commission of Appeals passed a historic ruling that allowed insurance companies to underwrite either or both casualty and property insurance.

This was all that the founder, Gus S. Wortham, who already ran a successful insurance agency, needed to hear. He formed a vision for his own agency then, and he opened the American General Insurance Company on May 7, 1926, as one of the few multi-line insurance business in the nation. Within 3 years, his company was able to declare its first dividend.

1945 was a tremendous period of growth, for it was then that American General acquired the Seaboard Life Insurance Company. This created the only company in the southern part of the United States that would underwrite casualty, automobile, life and fire insurance.

In 1953 he expanded to Omaha. The company also expanded through Tennessee, New York, and Maryland, and by 1968 its total assets had reached $1 billion, and so it began its first foray into trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

The company, the American General Life Insurance Company, still moved forward as it acquired The Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company, which dealt in retirement savings.

This was a significant acquisition, in the late 70’s, as that company’s co-founders had been instrumental in spearheading the creation of variable annuities, which is a trillion-dollar business today.

Then in 1982, the American General Company the American General Life Insurance Company began its consumer finance business, which eventually grew into a key business segment.

Also in 1982, the company acquired The National Life and Accident Insurance Company. The focus of the company was now concentrated on being able to emphasize consumer finance, life insurance as well as retirement services.

In 1994, 40 percent of the Western National Corporation was acquired by American General (the American General Life Insurance Company), and since the Western National Corporation was known as the leading provider of such things as retirement annuities, American General grew once more and in 1995 it acquired The Franklin Life Insurance Company in Springfield, Illinois. Then in 1997, it acquired The United States Life Corporation., and in 1998 the 60% remaining of Western National was acquired.

In 2001, the American International Group, Inc. then acquired American General (the American General Life Insurance Company). Thus they now can offer individual, institutional as well as commercial customers a divergent range of life insurance as well as general insurance through almost any country on a global scale.

So although American General (the American General Life Insurance Company) has protected the dreams and hopes of American families for over a century, they have never have lost their founder’s mission, that insurance is about people.

It’s all about those people, their dreams, their security, as well as their welfare. That mission has allowed the American General Life Insurance Company to grow, and it will continue to thrive on that same mission.

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American General Life Insurance Company

american general life insurance company rating

American General Life Insurance Company

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