North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company
|
Formerly called
|
North Carolina Mutual and Provident Association |
|---|---|
| Private | |
| Industry | Insurance |
| Founded | Durham, North Carolina (August 22, 1898) |
| Founder | John C. Merrick |
| Headquarters | Durham, United States |
|
Area served
|
United States |
|
Key people
|
Michael L. Lawrence (President) & (CEO) |
| Services | Insurance & Finance |
| Total assets |
|
| Total equity |
|
| Subsidiaries | North Carolina Mutual Insurance Agency |
| Website | http://www.ncmutuallife.com |
US$162 millionThe North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company (originally the North Carolina Mutual and Provident Association) is an American life insurance company located in downtown Durham, North Carolina and one of the most influential African-American businesses in United States history. Founded in 1898 by local black social leaders, its business increased from less than a thousand dollars in income in 1899 to a quarter of a million dollars in 1910. The company specialized in "industrial insurance," which was basically burial insurance. The company hired salesmen whose main job was to collect small payments (of about 10 cents) to cover the insured person for the next week. If the person died while insured, the company immediately paid benefits of about 100 dollars. This covered the cost of a suitable funeral, which was a high prestige item in the black community. It began operations in the new tobacco manufacturing city of Durham, North Carolina, and moved north into Virginia and Maryland, then to major northern black urban centers, and then to the rest of the urban South.
For much of the 20th century it was the largest company run by African Americans, and it is the largest and oldest African American life insurance company in the United States to this day. In fact, the company came to be known as the world’s largest African American business in only its first few years and is claimed by its home city of Durham as an important landmark. In the late 1800s and throughout the 1900s, Durham was known as “The Black Wall Street of America.” for the progress that African Americans were making within the town. The company’s founders, thought to be inspired by North Carolina business tycoon Washington Duke, included John Merrick and Aaron McDuffie Moore, two particularly influential men in Durham’s history. North Carolina Mutual and its prosperity brought many good things to Durham’s black community, and its founders and organizers were important contributors to social and economic progress in the city and particularly in its African American community.
North Carolina Mutual was the brainchild of black entrepreneur John C. Merrick in the late 1800s. Merrick was born into slavery as the son of a white man and a former slave in 1859. He grew up in Raleigh and Chapel Hill, two cities near Durham, and he learned various skills such as bricklaying and barbering during his youth. He moved to Durham in 1880 and opened his own barber shop in 1882. His hair-cutting business grew to include several stores, three for whites and two for blacks; the barbers were all black. Merrick himself cut hair for many people. The biggest influence came after John Merrick, along with four other partners, bought the Royal Knights of King David. The society was “a semi-religious fraternal and beneficial society for health and life insurance.” In buying it, Merrick learned about insurance and how to relate the insurance business to African Americans.
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