History

Part of what makes Shenandoah Life strong is our ongoing commitment to our policyholders, our producers, our employees, and our community.

Our policyholders witness this commitment firsthand anytime they call the home office. Our Customer Contact Center for Group and Individual Insurance receives 274,000 calls per year and personally handles those calls in less than 26 seconds wait time.

In addition, we have quick policy issue turnaround times for new customers - for example, less than three days for our lead product, Golden Promise®.

When our producers talk, company management listens. Three years ago, our field force asked us to develop a product they could sell to the booming mortgage market. The individual insurance team responded with the 2001 rollout of Mortgage Protector®, a term insurance product available to people who had bought or re-financed a house within the past two years.

Our technology initiatives continue to be impressive as well. We developed an agent-only website, so that our producers can have access to service reports, policy owner information, and company news anytime they need it. We constantly analyze and redevelop our websites to ensure that we stay current with technological standards. We upgrade employees' personal computers frequently to make sure we're on the cutting edge of technology

We have implemented document imaging and electronic workflow in over 60% of the company - improving the speed and accuracy of our work, and making customer transaction information accessible to authorized employees with just a few mouse clicks.


In our ongoing commitment to our customers, we haven't changed since 1914. But in other areas, we have established new standards and are constantly moving forward for the benefit of our policyholders and our producers.

When a company refers to itself as successful, it is most likely referring to its financial results. At Shenandoah Life, we think the financial stability of a company is very important.

We've had several years of astonishing growth. In 1999, our total annualized new sales were $42.8 million. In 2003, our total annual new sales were

$227.5 million, up over 400%. This strong growth was driven by an increase in the number of individual insurance applications, which have increased to nearly 60,000 total applications in 2003, almost ten times the number of applications we received in 1993. During that same period, our group policies in force have increased over 100%.

During the past ten years, total premium has grown by 158% to $315 million. Our insurance in force has grown by 15% to $11.6 billion, and the number of individual life policyholders we serve has increased by over 100% to 158,000.

Our solid financial status is confirmed by our industry rating. Shenandoah Life is rated A- (Excellent) by A.M. Best Company. This category is defined by A.M. Best as: "Assigned to companies that have, in our opinion, an excellent ability to meet their ongoing obligations to policyholders." A.M. Best's opinion is based on a comprehensive quantitative and qualitative evaluation of Shenandoah Life's balance sheet strength, operating performance, and business profile.

We haven't just drafted a blueprint for financial success - we are building our house on a firm foundation.