Chairman, President & CEO Message
Once again, the past year demonstrated the great value that middle market America places on Baltimore Life’s products and services. Many of our customers continued to be financially strained during 2009, and the guarantees we were able to provide helped them to live life on their terms during an uncertain economy. As a result, both our career and independent divisions experienced impressive sales growth.
Baltimore Life serves two distinct groups of customers with similar needs and expectations: our agents and our policyholders. Both groups consist of free-willed individuals with many decisions to make. Both groups want secure solutions for their financial needs. If we fail to go above and beyond their expectations, they can easily choose another company. We need to be dedicated to their financial success while guiding them through the best and worst of times. Most importantly, we must do what it takes to make their lives easier. As you’ll see in the pages that follow, our growth in recent years is a direct result of our ability to meet our customers’ needs and exceed their expectations.
There’s a lesson that both we and our policyholders have learned in this challenging economy: we must spend our money carefully and maintain fiscal discipline. Fortunately, as part of a mutual holding company, we have no need to cater to Wall Street analysts. This means that we can conduct business according to one simple rule: it’s the policyholder’s money. We’ve made promises to policyholders for commitments that may be many years away, and we’ve invested their money wisely with these promises in mind. This responsible practice has allowed us to pay regular dividends to seven generations of policyholders.
The rest of the industry took notice of our success in 2009. Baltimore Life was named to the 2009 Ward’s 50 list of top-performing life-health insurers in the United States. We were among a select group of insurers receiving this honor, including Aetna, MetLife, New York Life and State Farm.
The Ward Group’s analysis recognized Baltimore Life for outstanding financial results in the areas of safety, consistency and performance over a five-year period from 2004 through 2008. Success in such areas as surplus, income, risk-based capital ratio and annual premium growth was also noted. This recognition is a major accomplishment for Baltimore Life. Our quality performance is a direct reflection of the hard work, support and dedication of our agents, independent marketing organizations and Home Office associates.
Our high level of performance is also a result of our diligent planning process. Currently, we are in the second year of our 2009-2011 corporate plan. This plan contains three primary objectives:
- We will use our service platform to grow our relationships with quality independent marketing organizations and to increase our career agency force, with a goal of growing production by 15 percent annually.
- We will manage our expenses by focusing on our budget, increasing policy count, using technology to improve efficiency and pursuing appropriate acquisition opportunities.
- We will successfully enter new markets with innovative and responsive new products.
In summary, our strategy is to improve profitability by being the “carrier of choice” for America’s best agents who serve the middle market through innovation, responsiveness and long-term relationships. This strategy will continue to serve us well in the unpredictable financial environment that lies ahead.
Too often, success causes a company to think that what they did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow. Past successes are not always applicable to new situations and a changing economy. We’re continuously responding to the changing market with innovative new products and technologies to enable our agents and policyholders to live life on their terms…whatever they may be.
David K. Ficca, President and
Chief Executive Officer
L. John Pearson, CLU
Chairman of the Board
