The New Georgia Encyclopedia is supported by funding from A More Perfect Union, a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The headquarters for Crawford & Company, the world's largest independent insurance adjuster, are located in Atlanta. As of 2007 the company, which comprises the Broadspire, Global Property & Casualty, and Legal Settlement Administration divisions, operates 700 offices in 63 countries.
Courtesy of Crawford & Company
In 1941 Jim Crawford founded Crawford & Company, an independent insurance claims-adjusting firm, in Columbus. Five years later Crawford developed an internal training program, known today as Crawford University, which helped employees fulfull the company's mission of "Top Quality, Promptly."
Courtesy of Crawford & Company
A catastrophe adjuster for Crawford & Company, an Atlanta-based independent insurance adjusting company, examines damage caused by Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast in 2005. Crawford introduced catastrophe services in the early 1970s.
Courtesy of Crawford & Company
J. Mack Robinson, a prominent Atlanta businessman and philanthropist, began his career as a district manager for the Atlanta Journal. He subsequently opened finance and insurance offices around the state, and served as director for both the Atlanta American Corporation and First National Bank of Atlanta.
Oil portrait by Thomas V. Nash, Roswell
Jesse Hill was a prominent businessman and civil rights leader in Atlanta. He served as the president and chief executive officer of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, one of the nation's largest Black-owned companies, from 1973 until 1992. He also served on the boards of several leading Atlanta corporations, including Delta Air Lines and SunTrust.
Courtesy of Alexa Benson Henderson
Atlanta Life Insurance Company was founded by Alonzo Herndon, a prominent Black businessman in Atlanta, in 1905. After Herndon's death, leadership of the company passed to his son, Norris Herndon, in 1927 and then to Jesse Hill in 1973. The company is headquartered in Atlanta's Sweet Auburn district.
Photograph by Wally GobetzÂ
Jesse Hill, the former leader of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, is pictured in 2001 with his wife, Azira. Hill became active in the civil rights movement upon his arrival in the city in 1949, while living at the YMCA on Butler Street. The street was renamed in his honor in 2001.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In 1955 John Amos, along with his brothers William and Paul, founded the American Family Life Assurance Company in Columbus. Known today as Aflac, the company grew under Amos's leadership into an international corporation with more than 40 million policyholders in 2003.
Courtesy of Aflac
John Amos, a cofounder of the insurance company Aflac, made significant contributions in the business, political, and philanthropic arenas of Columbus. In addition to Aflac, Amos founded a television network, the American Family Broadcast Group, and was an active member of the Democratic party at both the local and national levels.
Courtesy of Aflac
In 1989 John Amos, a prominent member of the Columbus business community, celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday with the help of his wife, Elena Diaz-Verson Amos. Five years earlier, the couple successfully campaigned to bring the U.S. Army's School of the Americas to Fort Benning, and they were also active in promoting Latin American studies in Georgia.
Courtesy of Aflac
The new free-standing facility for the John B. Amos Cancer Center of the Columbus Regional Healthcare System was dedicated in 2004. The center was established through an endowment provided by Aflac cofounder John Amos in 1990; he died of lung cancer that same year.
Courtesy of Aflac
The J. Mack Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University was renamed in honor of Atlanta businessman J. Mack Robinson, who donated a $10 million endowment to the school in 1998. In 1994 Robinson and his wife, Nita, were named Philanthropists of the Year by the Georgia chapter of the National Society of Fund-Raising Executives.
Photograph by Kate Howard, New Georgia Encyclopedia
Life Insurance Company of Georgia (often referred to as Life of Georgia) was one of the largest diversified financial services organizations in the world, with total revenues of $295 million reported in 2002.
Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection, #LBCB076-013a.
Pilgrim Health and Life Insurance Company, the first insurer for African Americans in Georgia, operated in Augusta from 1898 until 1991, when it merged with Atlanta Life. The Pilgrim building still stands in Augusta on Laney-Walker Boulevard.
Courtesy of Augusta Convention and Visitors Bureau
Columbus-based Aflac, a leading writer of voluntary insurance coverage, does a significant portion of its business in Japan. The first U.S. company to sell insurance in Japan after World War II, Aflac today is the second most profitable foreign company operating in that country.
Courtesy of Aflac
The Amos brothers, shown here in 1976, founded American Family Life Insurance Company in 1955. The company, known today as Aflac, is headquartered in Columbus. From left to right, Paul, John, and William (Bill) Amos.
Courtesy of Aflac
Daniel Amos (right), the CEO and chair of Aflac, speaks with a doctor at the Aflac Cancer Center and Blood Disorders Service in 2001. The center, a major Aflac service project, is part of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and provides one of the nation's largest cancer programs for children.
Courtesy of Aflac
Daniel Amos, son of Aflac founder Paul Amos, became chief executive officer in 1990 and chair of the company in 2001. A graduate of the University of Georgia, Amos launched Aflac's successful national advertising program during the 1990s.
Courtesy of Aflac
As founder and first president of Atlanta Life Insurance Company, Alonzo Herndon displayed a leadership that blended ideals of racial self-help and independent entrepreneurship.
Courtesy of Alexa Benson Henderson
Alonzo Herndon with his mother, Sophenie, and his brother, Thomas, ca. 1890. About his early life Alonzo writes, "My mother was emancipated when I was seven years old and my brother Tom five years old. She was sent adrift in the world with her two children and a corded bed and [a] few quilts. . . . She hired herself out by the day and as there was money in the country, she received as pay potatoes, molasses, and peas enough to keep us from starving."
Courtesy of The Herndon Home
Alonzo, Adrienne, and Norris Herndon, 1907. Alonzo's marriage to Adrienne had a far-reaching impact on his life, greatly influencing his cultural and educational growth. It also produced his only child, Norris, who succeeded him as chief executive of Atlanta Life Insurance Company.
Courtesy of The Herndon Home
The staff of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company Branch Office, ca. 1925. In 1922 the company had achieved legal reserve status, a position enjoyed by only four other Black insurance companies at that time.
Courtesy of The Herndon Home
The international headquarters of Primerica Financial Services is located in Duluth. The company helps families achieve financial independence by providing solutions for income protection, debt management, asset protection, and asset management.
Courtesy of Primerica Financial Services
A. L. Williams Company founder Arthur Williams, in 1990. ALW, an insurance company, merged in 1989 with Primerica Financial Services.
Courtesy of Primerica Financial Services
