Aflac

Aflac Incorporated

File:Aflac.png
Company type	Public (NYSE: AFL)
Industry	Accident and Health Insurance
Founded	1955
Headquarters	Columbus, Georgia
Key people	Daniel Amos, Chairman, CEO
Products	Supplemental Health and Life Insurance
Revenue	$14.616 billion USD (2006)
Operating income	4,157,000,000 United States dollar (2022)
Net income	$1.483 billion USD (2006)
Number of employees	4,368 (2006)
Parent	Aflac Incorporated
Website	aflac.com

Aflac Incorporated (NYSE: AFL, TYO: 8686) sells supplemental health and life insurance in the United States and Japan. In the United States, Aflac is known for its policies which "pay cash" to supplement or replace a policyholder's income when an accident or sickness prevents the policyholder from working. Most of Aflac's policies are individually underwritten and marketed through its independent agents.

Since 1999, the company's identity has become more widely recognized, as the result of commercials featuring The Aflac Duck, who frustratedly "quacks" the company's name to oblivious prospective policyholders.

Aflac's insurance business is marketed and administered through American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus.

History

The company was founded by three brothers, John, Paul, and Bill Amos, in Columbus, Georgia in 1955 as the American Family Life Insurance Company (not to be confused with American Family Insurance). In 1964 the company’s corporate name was changed to American Family Life Assurance Company, and then in 1990 the acronym was formally adopted as the company's name. The company had 6,426 policyholders in 1956.

American Family Life pioneered cancer insurance in 1958. Beginning in 1964 the company decided to focus sales on worksite settings. By 2003, more than 98% of the company's policies in the United States were issued on a payroll-deduction basis, making the company the U.S. leader in that sales approach.

In 1973 American Family Life established a holding company, the American Family Corporation. The company's 1990 adoption of the "AFLAC" name set it apart from the many other insurance firms that include the word "American" in their names. (The official name on the firm's Web site, and for legally selling insurance, is "American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus".)

In 2005, the logo was changed to incorporate a duck character which is prominently featured in its advertising. In addition, the official spelling of the company name became "Aflac."

Businesses

Aflac operates in the United States and Japan (where the term "American Family" is still used in commercials).

Aflac's world headquarters and corporate offices are located in an 18-story tower east of downtown Columbus, Georgia.

At the end of 2006, the corporation's total assets were more than $59 billion, with more than 40 million policyholders worldwide. The company is the largest provider of guaranteed-renewable insurance in the United States and the largest insurance company overall in Japan, when measured by individual insurance policies in force.

The company now offers several types of insurance products including:

• Accident
• Cancer
• Specified-Disease
• Intensive Care
• Dental
• Vision
• Hospital Confinement Indemnity
• Hospital Confinement Sickness Indemnity
• Life
• Long-term care
• Short-term disability
• Unreimbursed medical and dependent day care flexible spending accounts

Aflac Duck

The Aflac brand has developed wide recognition in recent times with commercials starring the famous Aflac duck (with Gilbert Gottfried providing the voice) on television which started airing in December of 1999. The duck concept, as well as all of the commercials to date, were created by Tom Amico and Eric David, a creative team at The Kaplan Thaler Group, an advertising agency based in New York City. Struggling to come up with a concept to make the big but relatively obscure insurance company's name memorable, art director Eric David stumbled upon the duck idea by walking around Central Park at lunchtime while uttering "Aflac, Aflac" and realizing how much it sounded like a duck's quack. The Aflac duck character has now starred in many different commercials.

The creation of an effective, new, and recognizable brand "identity" for the company surrounding the duck is regarded as a significant modern branding case study.

The effect is created through a combination of footage of real ducks, CGI effects, and life-like puppets for close-ups. Most commercials feature the people discussing the short-term disability insurance that Aflac provides but with the people unable to remember the name of the company and the duck "quacking" the company name to jog their memory. The duck also has an explosive temper, which leads him to angered outbursts that invariably backfire on him. Misfortunes befalling the Aflac duck include falling into the Grand Canyon, getting hit by a train, sliding off a snowy rooftop and right onto a snowman, getting placed on an intense roller coaster, and having a car fall on him. In many commercials, it seems that there is only one person who actually notices the duck, a character played by Earl Billings. This character was in many of the earlier ads along with the duck. The character, however, has never spoken during the ads.

There have also been some celebrities to star in the ads, such as Chevy Chase, Yogi Berra, Yao Ming, Donald Trump's wife Melania Trump, and the United States Olympic synchronized swimming team. Berra's first ad, Berra at the Barber takes place in a barber shop and features three new Yogiisms:

"It's the one you really need to have. If you don't have it -- that's why you need it"

"If you get hurt and miss work, it won't hurt to miss work"

"They give you cash, which is just as good as money."

The Aflac duck also appears in commercials in Japan, though with a slightly different voice quacking "Aflac!" The personality of the Japanese Aflac duck is less grumpy than in the US commercials. He also smiles in some of the Japanese ads, sings along to songs and happily stamps his feet in time to music. He appears in them as a reassuring character.

The most recent Aflac commercial entitled There's Only One features a non-Aflac Nanny Goat who says "Naaaaaaaaah" when workers ask if their non-Aflac insurance will cover the sames benefits that Aflac does.

Aflac sells plush Aflac duck dolls, the proceeds of which benefit the Aflac Cancer Center. The sales are made through their Web site and also through retail partners such as Macy's department stores. Since 2001, over one million dollars have been raised to benefit the center.

Recognition

Aflac has been included in Fortune magazine's listing of America's Most Admired Companies for seven consecutive years and in Fortune magazine's list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For in America for nine consecutive years. Aflac has also been recognized three times by both Fortune magazine's listing of the Top 50 Employers for Minorities and Working Mother magazine's listing of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers.

References

2006 Annual Report (Form 10-K)

Corporate History

External links

• Aflac
• Aflac Products
• Aflac Services
• Aflac Investor Relations
• Aflac Careers
• Commercials featuring the Aflac Duck (with ringtones, wallpapers and other Aflac Duck-related content)