# Aflac

By [Untitled](https://paragraph.com/@0xa871f69ba2fa6979b755e9a6056ccfe36ba03f48) · 2023-07-27

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Aflac, based in [**Columbus**](https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/columbus/), is a leading writer of voluntary insurance coverage. Founded in 1955 by brothers John, Paul, and William Amos and incorporated as American Family Life Insurance Company, the company grew from 6,426 policyholders in 1956 to more than 40 million policyholders worldwide in 2003.  
Early Growth

Viewed historically, growth followed a number of innovations and management decisions. Expanding from life insurance, American Family Life pioneered [**cancer**](https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/science-medicine/cancer/) insurance in 1958. Over the years the company added policies to cover accidents, disability, dental work, specified health events, hospital confinement, hospital intensive care, and long-term care.

Beginning in 1964 the company decided to focus sales on worksite settings. By 2003 more than 98 percent of the company’s policies were issued on a payroll-deduction basis, making Aflac the U.S. leader in that sales approach. The decision to sell insurance internationally grew from [**John Amos**](https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/business-economy/john-amos-1924-1990/)’s 1970 visit to the Osaka World’s Fair in Japan. In 1974 the American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus, as it was then known, became the first U.S. company to sell insurance in Japan after the Allied occupation following [**World War II**](https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/world-war-ii-in-georgia/) (1941-45). For eight years the company monopolized Japan’s cancer insurance market. By 1994, twenty years after the company entered the Japanese market, its cancer life policy covered one out of four Japanese households.

[https://opensea.io/assets/0x4302fb0540dD1224A4AF826A877Ba7FFc0Cd668c/1](https://opensea.io/assets/0x4302fb0540dD1224A4AF826A877Ba7FFc0Cd668c/1)

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*Originally published on [Untitled](https://paragraph.com/@0xa871f69ba2fa6979b755e9a6056ccfe36ba03f48/aflac)*