A.M.P. SOCIETY.

Franklin Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 31, 31 March 1937, Page 7

A.M.P. SOCIETY.

EL DORADO IN LIFE INSURANCE. ACCOMPLISHMENT LAST YEAR. The enormous growth in life insurance business, always a good barometer of economic conditions, is evidenced by the experience of New Zealand’s largest house —the Australian Mutual Provident Society. The 1936 ordinary department new business total of substantially over 5-J million pounds written by the /Australian Mutual Provident Society in New Zealand is one of the greatest fei#n ever achieved since the inception ■ life insurance. H It is almost 50 per cent greatH than all the offices, including tH A.M.P., wrote in New Zealand in 19lH only twenty years previously. H The A.M.P. has eight branches, Australian, the United Kingdom, al New Zealand. These branches all operating in 1916. H Yet in 1916 all these branclH wrote in ordinary department nl business only £1,109,000 more tbH New Zealand by itself has just wil ten in 1936. H In the United Kingdom (which eludes Northern Ireland) the biriM place of life insurance there ninety-three life offices, over a do>B being very small concerns. ManyH them are very old,. well with large valuable connections automatically bring a good volume H the best business. H

The United Kingdom field is' a one, but there are fewer life there in proportion to population there are in "New Zealand. YetBBI all these British offices doing business in the United Kingdom eighty-six of them do not write as much new business each year as the A.M.P. wrote in this small country in 1936. In other words, the Australian Mutual Provident Society’s New Zealand business compared on a population basis with the United Kingdom would represent £166 millions in a year, and amount almost equal to 80 per cent of the total English business. Reasons for Growth. These New Zealand results are not due to an excessive number of agents being employed or the commissions paid to agents. There are four reasons for this phenomenal growth in business and popularity. It is hard to say which, if any one of these reasons is the most important. They are: — (1) Monthly (or more frequent) pretniums; (2) annual issue of bonus certificates; (3) remarkably good organisation, which includes extensive but well directed newspaper and other advertising in well selected media; (4) active and enthusiastic co-opera-tion between the office and the field staffs. Any one of these factors by Itself might have a ten per cent value. The cumulative effects of the four are tremendous and produce the phenomenal results. An analysis of the four causes listed above should be of both interest and value. (1) All intelligent men believe in life insurance but almost all of them receive their incomes at frequent intervals during the year, the huge majority fortnightly or weekly. By making insurance premiums come due frequently and so for small amounts, the Australian Mutual Provident Society met both the needs and the ability to pay of the great majority of New Zealand insurers. Under the group system of insurance small periodical payments are actually the cheapest method of paying for assurance protection. One wonders how poorly would the average man’s pantry be stocked if he had to pay his butcher and other tradesmen even three months in advance. First With Certificates. (2) The Australian Mutual Provident Society was the first life office in the world to issue annual bonus certificates, starting the practice over fifty years ago. Even today only a few of the English life offices issue them, but three of these offices are among the six offices which write the largest new business in England. Every man likes to see 1 something coming in, a dividend from his investment at least yearly. Nothing else convinces him so much as to the yalue of his investment. Any healthy man feels that the main benefits are remote, usually due only a long lime hence.

(3) The completeness of the Australian Mutual Provident Society’s new business organisation can easily be seen by any interested observer but it cannot be fully grasped fend understood except by some of the older members of its own staff. Probably very few even of these men have a 100 per cent knowledge of it. Each and all of the staff is an important cog, in some cases a wheel in this huge financial machine, a human machine which unquestionably Is of stupendous value to the community wherever it operates. (4) A frequent visitor, if observant, to any business bouse can soon sum up the tone which characterises the staff and the whole business. This proves the right atmosphere between the public and the office. However, a great deal more than Ibis is soon apparent. The utmost co-operalion exists be tween the field and office staffs of the sides of enthusiasm, ability and good office. There is a degree on both service which wins and keeps the large and rapidly growing sections of the public of all ages whom the office exists to serve. It is more than interesting, it is significant, to know that of all the many life offices which have their headquarters in the United Kingdom t>Td as