In 1965, Williams's father suddenly died of a heart attack. He had a whole life insurance
policy that left their family underinsured. Five years later Art
Williams's cousin Ted Harrison introduced to him the concept of term life insurance, a much less expensive and simpler alternative to whole life
which at that time was almost never sold and rarely heard of outside
the insurance industry. Williams was taken aback by the idea of not
knowing that there was a choice when buying life insurance and described
the whole conversation as "disturbing,"recalling his father's death and referring to the fact that people had
no idea of such a product. Believing that families were paying too much
for whole life policies that left them poor in the wallet and deeply
underinsured, Williams joined his cousin at ITT Financial Services in
1970. In June 1973, six months before ITT went out of business, he left
and went on board with Waddell & Reed, another BTID company that saw early success.
Williams gained momentum at W&R and became regional
vice-president (RVP) the same year, having a sales force that covered 6
states. Despite the numerous benefits of working at W&R in
comparison to ITT, it became clear to Williams that with a corporate
structure in which the executives, not the sales force, owned the
company, financial decisions would always have priority over the clients
and there would be limits on how much the company could grow.
On February 10, 1977 Williams and 85 associates founded their own company A.L. Williams & Associates on a simple philosophy: "Buy Term and Invest the Difference."
He convinced many customers to switch from their conventional
whole-life insurance to term policies. The company's rapid growth to the
largest seller of life insurance in the U.S. was enhanced by his
emphasis on "pushing up" his people. He was one of the first to have
weekly video conferences on the company's private television broadcast
system. This allowed him to personally speak to each of his 100,000 plus
agents and to create a family feeling that inspired them to become
Financially Independent. Today, what was formerly ALW Marketing is now
Primerica Financial Services.
Williams has made a large portion of his fortune from investments, particularly in Citigroup, of which he owns 21 million shares.
Williams purchased and entirely renovated the old Edwards Inn and Spa
in Highlands, North Carolina spending nearly 40 million. The inn went
from being relatively unknown to the #4 hotel according to Tripadvisor
in 2012.
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