10 Great Life and Annuity Ads From 100 Years Ago

2. Lincoln National

This ad uses the metaphor of a chain, and a drawing of a chain, to communicate the idea that the insurer has forged an iron bond with its agents and its policyholders.

Our Chain of Service

"A chain is no stronger than its weakest link”

The service chain which The Lincoln National Life Insurance Company has been forging through the years is strong in every link.

Policyholder

The policyholder is entitled to a clear understanding of his policy and to the keeping of every promise made in its clauses. Lincoln Life agents are trained to sell their business “right” and to aid the Home Office to give service plus on every policy.


Fieldman

The fieldman personifies the Company spirit in his territory. He keeps the contact between the policyholder and Home Office. Lincoln Life fieldmen are eager to represent the highest ideals of their Company because they know that they are backed in all their efforts by the most Ernest Home Office cooperation.


Home Office

The Home Office governs by its service attitude the strength of the other two links. The Lincoln Life Home Office departments are headed by men who are schooled in field service and who direct the energies of their loyal co-workers in the dispatching of every helpful function
.
The strength of the Lincoln Life service chain is best understood by those who
LINKUP
WITH THE
LINCOLN

The Lincoln National Life Insurance Company
“Its Name Indicates Its Character”
Lincoln Life Building
Fort Wayne, Ind.

Now More Than $225,000,000 in Force

3. Peoria Life

Support for agents is support for the customers.

Life insurance Another Name for December

For years, December has been “Policyholders’ Month” with the agents of the Peoria Life. All through the month each one has been going about his territory, greeting and visiting with his policyholders, and making himself useful to them in every way possible.

Not that the interest of Peoria Life agents in their policyholders is confined to the month of December. “Service to Policyholders” is a slogan with them 365 days in the year. December is simply the month when everyone joins hands in a concentrated effort to serve, calling attention and giving emphasis to the fact that the Peoria Life is an institution for service.

Peoria Life agents are raised in the idea of Service. Their Company provides

them with every means of ministering most effectively to the needs of their policyholders. But it doesn’t stop there. The best interests of the Agency Force itself are considered and promoted so thoroughly that the maxim "Service to Agents" takes its place beside "Service to Policyholders" as a policy distinguishing the Peoria Life.

Peoria Life Insurance Company
Peoria, Illinois


[A photo of the Home Office Building of the Peoria Life.]

“Cooperation Headquarters”

Home Office Building of the Peoria Life. Owned by the Company without lien or encumbrance of any kind. Built from its current receipts, without disturbing the farm mortgage investments which have earned the Peoria Life its reputation for:


Policies Strong as Farm Mortgages Can Make Them!"


Good Contracts to Clean, Live Agents

4. John Hancock*

Connect selling life insurance with patriotism, and show agents the numbers.

Incorporated in 1862 in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Named JOHN HANCOCK in honor of the first Governor of Massachusetts, and first signer of the Declaration of Independence.

In 60 years it has grown to be the largest fiduciary institution in New England.

Policies made secure by reserves maintained on the highest standards with an adequate Contingent Fund providing protection against all emergencies. Total assets, $238,693,000; Policyholders' Reserves and all Other Liabilities, $226,361,000; Contingent Fund, $13,332,000.

Policy contracts include all equities and options.

Business done through agents. Information and advice on any matter relating to life insurance are available at any time through the Agencies or Home Office of this Company.

John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company
Of Boston, Massachusetts

* Manulife

5. Guardian

Be strong, and serve agents and policyholders well.

“Financial Status Unsurpassed”
says The Insurance Almanac in its review of the progress and activities of The Guardian Life

The same thing could be said for the service which this Company renders to its field force and policyholders. The Guardian's broad, progressive program of Agency Co-operation and Service to Policyholders is unsurpassed by any other company, and equalled by few.

If you want to know the whole story of what this Company is doing for its field force, address:

T. Louis Hansen, Vice President, or George L. Hunt, Superintendent of Agencies

The Guardian Life Insurance Company
OF AMERICA

Established 1860 under the Laws of the State of New York
Home Office: 50 Union Square, New York

6. MassMutual

Keep premiums low and provide good service.

Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company
Incorporated in 1851
Springfield, Massachusetts

A company which throughout the seventy years of its history has ever enjoyed — because of its square dealing toward all and its long record of low net cost — the good will of its policyholders, the confidence and esteem of the insuring public, and the loyalty of its representatives.

Joseph C. Behan, Superintendent of Agencies

7. Reserve Loan Life*

Cartoons can show how prospective sales reps really think about what they could be selling.

Are You Interested?

One salesman at a table, looking at a Reserve Loan Life Insurance Company life insurance policy: "Well! This is worth 100 cents on th' dollar."

A second salesman at the table, looking at an oil stocks document: "I don't know what we'll get out of these. Not much, I fear."

Caption: Which will your executors find?

1923

Live salesmen now contemplating a change:

Our agency plans for 1923 are now ready.

We have good territory reserved for men of proved ability in life insurance selling. Investigate our proposition; it's worth while.

Western Reserve Life Insurance Company
Indianapolis, Indiana


* Voya

8. The State Life Insurance Company *

A strong life insurer should combine a traditional approach to financial strength with modern thinking.

The State Life Insurance Company
Indianapolis

More than twenty-one million dollars in securities
Deposited with the State of Indiana for the
Sole Protection of Policyholders
Progressive = Conservative
The Growth of Oak — The Solidity of Granite
On Agency Matters Adress, Charles F. Coffin, Vice President

* OneAmerica

9. Prudential

The wisest of the Greeks understood the importance of planning for the future.

There was one ancient Athenian who was in hot water all the time. It was Pericles. His trouble seemed to be in living a thousand years beyond his day, and this was some trouble in a period when folks still believed in Olympian Gods, dragons, flying horses and such things.

Pericles was the first real disciple of vision. He looked into the centuries after him, but he couldn’t get his neighbors to peep with him. Every once in a while he would win a war, and then he would be lifted on some shoulders.

The next day a rival would say Pericles had done wrong in fighting as he had and down the hero would be bumped. Then a week or two afterward he would be empowered to build a Parthenon or Acropolis, and when he would get about half way through, another jealous adversary would start and complain about the cost. "Pericles is wasting your money," would be the cry in the marketplace and a million or so Greeks would hasten to the door of Pericles’ home and threaten him with tar and feathers. "All right," he would reply to the onslaught, "let the cost not go to your account but to mine, and let the inscription on the Parthenon stand in my name as a living heritage to my wife and children." The glory of his great work soon soothed the multitude, and he was allowed to proceed and leave to us a world marvel of architecture.

The last years of his life were the hardest. He worked out a family budget, the first of history, perhaps, and again the people complained when he suggested it for all. "It is as it is," said Pericles, and added, "while I am here my family is safe; when I am gone they cannot live on my work alone." Is there not a life insurance point to this? Is it sufficient to leave only a reputation for greatness? Think it over.

The Prudential
Insurance Company of America
Edward D. Duffield, President
Home Office. Newark, New Jersey

10. New York Life

Selling life insurance is a holy mission.

Job's Turkey & The Church Mouse

The only authentic records we have respecting Job’s Turkey and the Church Mouse are the proverbs:

“Poor as Job’s Turkey,” and
“Poor as a Church Mouse.”

It may therefore be safely assumed that Job had a turkey, and that a mouse dwelt in a church, and that both turkey and mouse were very much attenuated.

Job was righteous; he was rich; he had a large family; he sat as chief and dwelt as king among his fellows. But when troubles came, they came “not single spies, but in battalions.” In a day all outward possessions were lost. The Sabeans, the Chaldeans, “the fire of God,” and the “great wind from the wilderness” made a clean sweep, and the bearers of bad news trod upon each other’s heels to tell it. Job still had his health, but not for long, for soon he lost that also. It is not profanity to say, “Hell was let loose upon him,” for that is what the record says, only in more polite language. And then came the run-in with his four selfrighteous friends — men who professed to know the will of God and who said in short, — ‘It’s all your fault, Job. Come now, own up, what evil have you done?”

When there were 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen and 500 she-asses upon Job’s estate, the turkeys fared well, but when these were all gone, and with them all Job’s servants except the four who escaped to tell the bad news, it must have been poor pickin’. Poor Turk! He had to scratch for a living — and he got thinner and thinner until it came to be a proverb — “Poor as Job’s Turkey.” Why make a mystery of a plain case? Job’s Turkey was poor because he didn’t get enough to eat!

It was the same with the Church Mouse. He was eminently respectable and liked to live in quiet surroundings. The church sociables and the meetings of the various societies when “light refreshments” were served always left a few fragments which, with judicious hoarding and self denial, kept the mouse alive. But he was so poor that any self-respecting cat would have disdained to eat him — poor because he didn’t get enough to eat!

Job’s Turkey and the Church Mouse were poor because they didn’t get enough to eat; some people don’t get enough to eat because they are poor! A man who is as rich as Job was can now arrange his affairs in such a way that the Sabeans, the Chaldeans, “the fire of God,” and the “great wind from the wilderness” cannot make him poor; and when he loses his health permanently, he will have better comforters than Job had.

The man who has only his hands to work with can so protect himself and his family that permanent loss of health will not mean total loss of income, nor loss of life mean that his wife will be “poor as a church mouse.” But he must get this protection before his ‘enemies are in sight.

Many agents of the New York Life Insurance Company have warned you of the approach of those enemies. Send for one to-day and learn how to defeat them.


New York Life Insurance Company, 346 Broadway, N.Y.
Darwin P. Kingsley, President