Aflac

Aflac Incorporated

File:Aflac.png
Company type	Public NYSE: AFL TYO: 8686
Industry	Supplemental Insurance
Founded	1955
Headquarters	Columbus, Georgia
Key people	Dan Amos (CEO)
Products	Supplemental health and life insurance
Revenue	$16.554 billion USD (2008)
Net income	$1.254 billion USD (2008)
Number of employees	8,292 (2008)
Website	aflac.com

Aflac Incorporated is the largest provider of supplemental insurance in the United States, founded in 1955 and based in Columbus, Georgia. In the United States, Aflac underwrites a range of insurance policies, but is perhaps best known for its payroll deduction insurance coverage, which pay cash benefits when a policyholder has a covered accident or illness. In Japan, the company is the second largest insurer overall and the largest life insurer, and is also well known for its supplemental medical policies.

History

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Aflac's founders, Paul Amos, John Amos, and Bill Amos.

The company was founded by three brothers, John Amos, Paul Amos, and Bill Amos, in Columbus, Georgia, in 1955 as American Family Life Insurance Company of Columbus. In 1964, the company name was changed to American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus. The company, in 1990, adopted the Aflac initialism, although the official name of the underwriting subsidiary remains American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus.

The company signed 6,426 policyholders in its first year. Aflac pioneered cancer insurance in 1958. Beginning in 1964, the company decided to focus sales on worksite settings, eventually through policies sponsored by employers and funded through payroll deductions. By 2003, more than 98% of Aflac policies in the United States were issued on a payroll deduction basis, making the company a leader in that approach to policy distribution. In 1973, Aflac established a holding company, the American Family Corporation.

Businesses

Aflac operates in the United States and Japan, and has its worldwide headquarters and corporate offices in an eighteen story tower east of downtown Columbus, Georgia. At the end of 2008, the corporation's total assets were more than $79 billion, and the company insured more than 40 million people worldwide. Aflac 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. Aflac launched a campaign in 2001 to promote their first accident policy in Japan, which The Wall Street Journal rated as one of the "ten most effective campaigns of 2000."

The company now offers several types of insurance policies in the United States, including the following:

• Accident
• Cancer/Specified Disease
• Short-Term Disability
• Hospital Intensive Care
• Hospital Confinement Indemnity
• Hospital Confinement Sickness Indemnity
• Long-Term Care
• Specified Health Event
• Dental
• Vision
• Term Life
• Whole Life
• Juvenile Life (Term to Age 25)

Aflac also offers unreimbursed medical, dependent day care, and transporation flexible spending accounts. The company also offers human resources services for HIPAA and COBRA administration.

Aflac Duck

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Aflac Duck

Since 2000, 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 unsuspecting prospective policyholders. The Aflac brand has developed wide recognition recently with commercials starring the famous Aflac Duck (with Gilbert Gottfried providing the voice) on television which started airing in December 1999. The duck concept and all of the commercials to date have been created by 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, one of the agency's art directors stumbled upon the duck idea while walking around Central Park at lunchtime uttering, "Aflac, Aflac." He soon realized how much the company's name sounded like a duck's quack. The Aflac Duck character has now starred in more than 30 commercials.

In April 2009, Aflac introduced a new marketing campaign called “Get the Aflacts,” designed to educate consumers about the specific benefits of the insurance products the company sells. The Aflacts campaign gave the Aflac Duck "a more prominent role," designed to "help potential customers learn the Aflacts, er, facts about policies and other products," according to The New York Times .

The Aflac duck is portrayed through a combination of footage of real ducks, CGI effects, and lifelike puppets for close-ups. Most of the commercials feature humans discussing the insurance that Aflac provides, although they are unable to remember the name of the company. The duck quacks the Aflac name, trying to jog their memory. The duck also has a temper, which leads it to angered outbursts that invariably backfire. Misfortunes befalling the Aflac Duck include falling into the Grand Canyon, getting hit by a train, sliding off a snowy rooftop and onto a snowman, getting placed on an intense roller coaster, and being hit by a falling automobile. 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 with the duck. The character, however, has never spoken during the ads and seems to be unnerved by the presence of the duck.

Celebrities have also starred in the Aflac ads, including Chevy Chase, Yogi Berra, Yao Ming, Donald Trump's wife, Melania Trump, NASCAR driver Carl Edwards, United States Olympic synchronized swimming team, and Wayne Newton playing at Stardust Hotel and Casino in 2003 commercial. 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."

Since 2001, 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 U.S. commercials. The duck also smiles in some of the Japanese ads, sings along to songs and happily stamps its feet in time to music. The Aflac Duck appears in Japanese commercials as a reassuring character. The company's most recent commercials for the U.S. and Japan can be seen on the company's Web site.

Aflac sells plush Aflac Duck dolls, and the proceeds benefit the Aflac Cancer Center and Blood Disorders Service at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, which is recognized as one of the largest childhood cancer treatment and research centers in the United States by Child magazine. The sales began after the popularity of the commercials began to generate requests from the public asking where they could purchase "the duck". The sales are made through the company's Web site and through retailers such as Macy's department stores. Since 2001, sales of the Aflac duck have raised nearly $2 million to benefit the center.

In a 2002 interview on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, actor Ben Affleck stated he has been driven crazy with the Aflac Duck with drunk women coming up to him yelling "Aflac!" Affleck has also been approached by the advertising company to do television ads for them, but Affleck replied to them "You guys are killing me".

In 2005, the company logo was changed to incorporate the duck.

See also

• List of United States insurance companies

References

• 2008 Annual Report
• Corporate History
• Corporate Overview

External links

• Aflac
• Aflac Investor Relations
• Aflac Careers