Principal Financial Group history

With its selective standards and frugal operation--it had no paid staff until 1893, relying instead on volunteer labor--it was able to keep assessments low, and agents' sales pitches emphasized the low cost.

His successor as president, Ernest E. Clark, was more sympathetic to the idea, and the conversion was effected in 1911, with the association becoming The Bankers Life Company.

George Kuhns, who was elected president in 1916 after Clark resigned because of ill health, set out aggressively to make Bankers Life Company grow once again.

By 1925 insurance in force grew to $844 million.

Gerard Nollen had become president of Bankers Life Company after Kuhns's death in 1926.

The drive ended with about 40,000 of the certificates still in force, and in 1927 Bankers Life Company had to drastically raise quarterly assessments for the certificate holders, as the emergency reserve fund that had been used to supplement them was depleted.

Both stations protested to the Federal Radio Commission, to no avail, and WHO was sold to WOC in 1930.

In 1934 Bankers Life Company had more money going out in loans than coming in through premium payments.

1939 – Continued growth required the company to relocate its operations to a larger facility.

During the booming postwar years, Bankers Life Company entered new fields and offered new products. It began selling individual accident and health insurance in 1952.

In 1957 it began offering holders of ordinary life insurance policies the option to buy extra coverage for a small extra premium without taking a medical examination--an innovation that soon caught on with other insurance companies.

In 1968, as Bucknell was moving up to chairman and chief executive officer and Harold G. Allen was succeeding him as president, Bankers Life Company went into the mutual fund business.

In 1977 Bankers Life Company went to market with an adjustable life insurance policy, in which holders could adjust premium costs and coverages.

Principal Financial Group and a subsidiary, Invista Capital Management--which was formed in 1985 as Value Investors--manage more than $18 billion for pension funds and other tax exempt fund sponsors.