Art L Williams Views
Williams was born on April 26, 1942 in Cairo, Georgia.[2] He obtained his bachelor's degree in arts and sciences at Mississippi State University in Starkville, Mississippi and his master's degree in science from Auburn University. From his early days in high school Art always aspired to be a professional football coach.
In 1965, Williams' father suddenly died of a heart attack. He had a whole life insurance policy that left their family underinsured. Five years later Art Williams' cousin Ted Harrison introduced to him the concept of term life insurance, a much cheaper and simpler alternative to whole life which at that time was almost never sold and rarely heard of outside the insurance industry. Williams was taken aback by the idea of not knowing that there was a choice when buying life insurance and described the whole conversation as disturbing, [3] recalling his father's death and referring to the fact that people had no idea of such a product. Believing that families were paying too much for whole life policies that left them poor in the wallet and deeply underinsured, Williams joined his cousin at ITT Financial Services in 1970. In June 1973, six months before ITT went out of business, he left and came on board with Waddell & Reed, another BTID company that saw early success.
Founded in 1977 by Arthur L. Williams, Jr. as A.L. Williams & Associates (A.L. Williams), the company established its base by mass-marketing the concept of Buy Term and Invest the Difference. [7] With BTID the company claimed its mostly middle-income client base could purchase sufficient protection with term life insurance and systematically save and invest in separate investment vehicles, such as mutual fund Individual Retirement Accounts.[1] A.L. Williams was initially established as a privately held general agency, at first selling term life insurance policies underwritten by Financial Assurance, Inc. (FAI).
The company expanded, outgrowing the capacity of FAI to process its business. In 1980, A.L. Williams entered into a contract with Boston-based Massachusetts Indemnity and Life Insurance Company (MILICO), a larger underwriter of life insurance, whose parent was PennCorp Financial Services based in Santa Monica. To support A.L. Williams headquartered in Atlanta, MILICO established a regional office in that city. In 1981, the company established First American National Corporation (later renamed The A.L. Williams Corporation) as a holding company for First American Life Insurance (later renamed A.L. Williams Life Insurance Company) and First American National Securities (later renamed PFS Investments, Inc). In 1982, The A.L. Williams Corporation (ALWC) underwrote a public stock offering, listed in the Over the Counter (OTC) market under the symbol ALWC. In 1983, the company became listed on the NASDAQ exchange under the same symbol.
Art L Williams Images
