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March. 1978 ■ New National BLACK MONITOR
Anderson Schweich and the
National Insurance Association
Precarious People
Less than a year ago in July, 1977,
Chicago Metropolitan Mutual Assurance
Company’s President Anderson Schweich
became president of the National Insurance
Association. He realized, at the time, that
his high honor represented—in many
symbolic ways—the peculiarly precarious
or highly uncertain survival position of the
people whom the member companies of the
National Insurance Association were called
to serve.
The issue of “insurance,” in general, for
black Americans not only related to tempo
rary survival after death of a breadwinner
or loved one. It also meant preparing our
selves for a longer and more fulfilling life
and acting responsibly as citizens in all
ways was a “must” so that both insurance
costs and needs could be reduced. Thus
because we as black citizens had been
“crippled” in so many ways that we had
become unwitting hazards to ourselves, the
challenge to black-owned insurance com
panies was particularly great.
Anderson Schweich, as the ever-alert and
constantly optimistic president of the
“National” Insurance Association, recog
nized that the very word “national” was
but a euphemism or code word for
“Negro” or “black.” He was, thus, not
the president of a national network of
America’s major insurance companies. He
was, rather, the presiding officer of a mi
nority business association which, for a
variety of reasons both partially positive
and partially negative, was faced with a
highly uncertain but immensely challenging
future.
Specifically, Anderson Schweich was
deeply mindful that the member companies
of the National Insurance Association,
whose interests were tied deeply with the
up-grading needs of our communities, had
dropped by more than one-third in num
bers since 1959. Less than twenty years ago
there were sixty member companies of the
National Insurance Association.
Today, there are thirty-seven black
member companies of the National Insur
ance Association. To Anderson Schweich,
the dramatic drop in numbers of America’s
black insurance companies was but one of
the countless or pervasive, signs of the
tenuous economic future which black
Americans in all walks of life face today.
But of that future for black Americans—
which challenges, in a sense, almost as
from the bottom of the well—Anderson
Schweich says boldly and clearly to every
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“The Politics of Persistence”
black American: "The future is not some
place to which we are going. Our future is
what we are creating by all of the things
which we, as black Americans, do both
individually and collectively each day. ”
Survival Challenge
Historically, black insurance companies
have represented perhaps the most pres
tigious—and once the most promising—of
all black business enterprises.
Practically all black businesses have
arisen out of the unique or peculiar posi
tion of black people in American life. The
effects of the culture heritage of a nation,
created over generations and maintained
for centuries, cannot be wiped out in a day.
America’s past and its present mystique
is that of a primarily white nation. Black
Americans traditionally have neither been
considered nor dealt with fully as insiders.
This was devastatingly true to an extreme in
the period of legal segregation and dis
crimination. But the cultural “fall-out” or
“lag” continues with black Americans in a
sorely crippling way today.
Thus while there are no overt legal or
legislative sanctions penalizing black busi
ness, the participation of blacks in the
highest benefit levels of the nation’s
economic life has always been slight. But it
is practically miniscule or even more slight,
when compared against the total economic
life in America today.
It is for this primary reason, along with
others, that black Americans should par
ticipate in—and build—their own eco
nomic structures which they can control
and which they need for the good of all in
America.
Due to lack of this black participation in
the black-owned insurance industry, so
Anderson Schweich notes, for the 37 mem
ber companies of the National Insurance
Association, the following tragic or poten
tially ominous comparisons with white
owned insurance companies prevail:
1. Life insurance in force among black
insurance companies is only 4/10 of one
percent of all U.S. life insurance com
panies.
2. The combined assets or net worth of
the 37 black insurance companies are only
2/10 of one percent of the assets of all U.S.
life insurance companies.
3. The premium receipts of all the black
insurance companies combined are 3/10 of
'Pulling Ourselves Up By Our Own Bootstraps'-A Series
Are you supporting the Hack-owned businesses and black professionals in your community?
one percent of the premium receipts ob
tained by all U.S. life insurance companies.
When one recognizes that black Ame
ricans represent from 12 to perhaps 18 per
cent of the United States population, the
figures just cited suggest that black Ame
rican businesses may be receiving some
what less than 1/20 of their proportionate
or equitable share.
The picture here cannot be said to be
modified significantly by the needed owner
ship, or high benefit level participation, of
blacks in predominantly white business
enterprises. Indeed, both the numbers and
assets of black holdings in practically all
aspects of American life are dwindling—
from home and farm ownership to all
aspects of interest-bearing investments.
One of the purposes of this article is to call
to the attention of our people that we must
restructure our priorities and develop uni
fied and coordinated plans for action if we
are to make of our communities the self
sustaining marketplaces they should be for
the good of all.
Early History
The black insurance business historically
has been intertwined with the social and
economic needs of black people. It may be
seen as true today.
At the time of the American Revolution,
there were more than 600,000 black people
in America. Many were free; some were
quite prosperous, but the overwhelming
majority were either enslaved or practically
penniless.
It was during this period that Prince
Hall, the founder of American Free
masonry, sought to establish, in his organi
zational work, a mechanism of “mutual
benefit and assistance” which, in effect
became the first rudiments of the black
insurance enterprise in America.
The black insurance business, since the
1700’s, has represented a major and con
tinuing need on the part of black Ameri
cans to be of assistance to each other.
No other segment of black business life
has played as important a role in helping
black Americans to help themselves as has
the black insurance industry.
“Savings and System’’
Insurance among black Americans did
not begin as a business enterprise, in the
strict sense of the term until the 1880’s.
PHOTO CREDIT: Rhoden's Photo di Press Service
Anderson M. Schweich
Churches, lodges and other private bene
volent associations among blacks included
savings, burial assistance and “good and
welfare” funds, all of which represented
benefits covered by insurance companies
today.
Os these early mutual benefit associations
Booker T. Washington wrote in the early
1900’s that they were essential to black self
development by freeing black Americans
from an undue dependence upon others.
Writing in The Story of the Negro, in
1909, Dr. Washington praised these “good
and welfare” efforts which were to be
found among black groups of all kinds. Dr.
Washington suggested that such ventures
were of priceless value in terms of building
cooperative strength and for teaching “the
masses of (our) people habits of savings
and of system which they would not other
wise have been able or disposed to learn.”
Early Chicago
Metropolitan Example
The Chicago Metropolitan Mutual As
surance Company's history of servicing
black needs may be seen as typical of the
spirit which has encouraged and sustained
the work of practically all of the member
companies of the National Insurance
Association.
“Chi-Met,” as the company is popularly
called, was chartered by the State of Illinois
on December 28, 1927 and began doing
business immediately. The original name of
the company was symbolic of a practical
need felt by the vast majority of black
Americans. The company was chartered as
the Metropolitan Funeral System Asso
ciation.
While the 1920’s were years of “high
life” for many white Americans, they were ,
years of a post World War I backlash for
black Americans. Blacks earned little, and
could save less. Death often found blacks
destitute. <
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