FSL completed its 50th year in business in 2018, and as President Dick Jones has observed, "all the stars must have been aligned." The company achieved two significant milestones in its 50th year: Assets exceeded $1 billion for the first time, and Total Premium also eclipsed the $1 billion mark for the first time.
Fidelity also recorded its most profitable year ever, achieving net income before taxes exceeding $42 million, which allowed the company to further bolster its Capital & Surplus by an astounding 18.6% — in one year!
"None of this could have been achieved without the daily effort and excellence of hundreds and hundreds of great people who have worked for FSL over the years," Jones said, "as well as many marvelous partners who've joined us in this achievement. Fidelity truly is a company that has been Built Together."
The FSL story really begins more than 50 years ago, in 1953, when the Jones family — Forrest, Dorothy and two young sons, Dick and Bob—left Chicago to begin an entrepreneurial adventure. They leveraged everything they owned to purchase a small, three-person insurance agency in Kansas City, Missouri, which grew quickly under their guidance.
It wasn't long into this adventure when the family started dreaming of staring their own insurance company — to provide better insurance products and pricing to their agency clients. It took roughly a decade to realize this dream with the birth of Fidelity Security Life in 1968.
Like their insurance agency, their little insurance company grew slowly and steadily by focusing on the needs of its clients and insurance consumers. Even tragic setbacks such as the death of son Bob, a cancer victim at age 35, and a debilitating stroke that Forrest suffered in 1982, could not deter the forward momentum of FSL.
Today, a third generation of Jones family members brings fresh perspectives and energetic leadership to FSL, along with a desire to continue building on the sturdy foundation established over the past 50 years.