John Amos, Founder of AFLAC

AFLAC is an amazing company. When I first studied the company over ten years ago, I was certain that the information was wrong. It was inconceivable that a company from south Georgia dominated the insurance market in Japan. But I learned it was true. So much for the fabled inability of U.S. companies to do well in the Japanese market.

I searched for the story and found it in a book titled "The Man From Enterprise: The Story of John Amos, Founder Of AFLAC." After reading about his entrepreneurial childhood, wonderful marriage, early law career, I found what I wanted. In Chapter 16, the author describes that John was on a round-the-world trip with an eighty-one year old friend of his.

On a cold, rainy April day in 1970, John saw something. "Many of the Japanese wore surgical masks to prevent other people from catching their colds. Most people would think...how quaint. John...thought of something else..these were a health conscious people, people who might buy cancer insurance if it could be made available."

Over the next four years, AFLAC worked to get approved. They were not only approved, but granted a monopoly on the writing of supplemental cancer insurance for a period of three years that was extended for eight. The first year was portentous. They expected to write about $3.5 million of premium and ended up writing $25 million. The rest, as they say, is history.