R. Philip Bixby will retire as president and CEO of Kansas City Life Insurance Co. on April 25 after 45 years at the company, though he will remain chairman.
A new president and CEO will be elected at the April 25 meeting of the board.
Bixby is great-grandson, grandson and nephew to several former Kansas City Life top executives. He joined the company in 1977 as an entry-level employee and worked his way up through the ranks. He became a member of the board, was named as president and CEO in 1998, and became chairman in 2004 after the death of his uncle, Joseph Bixby.
“It has been my privilege to work with the great people of Kansas City Life for the last 45 years,” Bixby said in a release. “I am proud of all that we have accomplished during that time. These are challenging times for our industry, but I know we will continue forward with the same resolve and strength as we have shown for the last 127 years.”
Kansas City Life (OTCQX: KCLI) was established in 1895. It sells life insurance and annuities nationwide. Companies that offer life insurance and annuities regularly struggle to make necessary gains on investments or to offer competitive investment products when interest rates are low, like they’ve been for most of the past 10 years.
The Great Recession in 2008 moved the Federal Reserve Bank to push interest rates to near zero for about six years. Rates gradually started to creep up from 2016 to 2019, giving insurance companies more breathing room. Then the pandemic delivered a double whammy: Interest rates dropped again to near zero, and morbidity rates rose as people died from Covid-19 infections and their families collected on the life insurance policies.
Kansas City Life experienced declines in insurance revenues and net investment income in 2021 but partially offset those declines with the sale of subsidiary Sunset Life Insurance Co. in November. Overall, it posted net income of $10.7 million for the year, down from $15.2 million in 2020.
In 2020, the company reported revenue of $523.9 million and assets of $5.46 billion. The same year, it reported 455 local employees.
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