Evolving Our Mission
Hello GBU Members,
As I was preparing this article for The Reporter, I started by reviewing my past articles and thinking about the changes that have occurred over the past three years. I, like all of you, have had opportunity to refocus on the importance of family, community and financial stability. The idea of stability was in the front of my thought process because GBU recently celebrated our 129th anniversary. Bill Hunt, our CEO, reminded our employees on April 13, 2021, of our legacy: the GBU was a mutual benefit association and life insurance company, a vehicle for multiethnic cooperation, a social group and a significant charitable contributor founded April 13, 1892. What was true in 1892 reflects our great society’s roots and ties into our vision today: 'to grow GBU Life into a best-in-class insurance company, providing competitive products, community strengthening and member activities for all generations.'
My professional responsibility to our members, producers and employees is to preserve the value of our investments and continue to secure our futures. This has always been the Investment Department's mission. In past articles, I have emphasized our investment philosophy and commitment to fuel responsible growth for the society.
Today, we continue to focus on financial stability by generating stable and consistent value through high quality investing in fixed income securities. We manage the portfolio to remain “excellent” (A-) as rated by AM Best. This rating is a true indication of GBU’s stability and focuses on responsible management.
Like that of our organization, the investment mission has continued to evolve over the past few years. In the Home Office, we continue to oversee all $3.4 billion in assets, but the evolution is occurring on how we increase the efficiency and opportunity for our assets to grow. Over the past 14 months, GBU has hired three investment managers to provide additional perspectives, access to new investment opportunities, and most importantly, diversification into more types of investments to keep GBU growing. Each investment manager has a small portion of GBU’s assets under management, but each must comply with the same investment process, limits, and high quality standards GBU has employed for decades.
Our lineup of managers remains internally managed. Mandi Surgeon, CFA, CTP, and I have a combined 35+ years of experience managing fixed-income, insurance-focused assets. Mandi’s CFA designation is an investment industry mark of the highest achievement. The CFA charter requires three years of intense study and passing three exams that signify the knowledge and commitment of the highest integrity and discipline. Mandi’s addition to the team provides additional perspective and improvement to the internal process. Mandi and I coordinate on investment opportunities and interact directly with our investment partners to generate the yields that make our annuities and life insurance products the valuable assets our members depend upon for their investment goals.
Our investment partners (AAM Asset Management, Securian Asset Management, and Wellington Asset Management) specialize in insurance company assets. Each was selected because of their expertise, resources and fit with the GBU’s philosophy. The individual manager is an extension of the GBU philosophy focused on income generation, low trade turnover, and value investing. Long-time members may be surprised to learn about the use of managers other than GBU employees; however, as the investment environment changes, so must our business model.
The important aspect to know is that all three investment-partner teams combined manage less than 15 percent of the GBU assets. Each must follow our investment policies, limits, and insurance regulations in making investment decisions. Regular communications between our investment team and our partners ensure that we all work as an extension of GBU’s investment philosophy and that our goals are achieved. Managers find opportunities for investments through their networks, contacts and investment evaluations that GBU, traditionally, may not have been able to access. Our board reviews all investment results quarterly to ensure the value-added and growth of the portfolio are meeting the requirements of the society.
The Investment Department’s role in the GBU business model is to ensure that the investment you make with GBU is growing and that your initial investment is safe and available on your terms for your goals. The quality of the GBU investment portfolio remains high, with all of our assets in bonds and cash.
The stress-test scenarios conducted by actuarial firms required by insurance departments indicate that our investments remain extremely well-positioned to protect your money during stressful times like we just experienced in 2020. The expectations of GBU members that rely on a stable income, access to their money and protection of the principal have not changed. The philosophy of prudent investment and consistent growth remains the same. The evolution of the investment process makes it possible to access opportunities and use more efficient resources while diversifying our expertise to keep growth constant. This allows us to provide value to you, our members, as well as opportunities for prospective members into the future.
Sincerely,
Tim King, CTP
VP/Chief Investment Officer
