Skip to main content
×
×
Home

Marketing the Message: The Making of the Market for Life Insurance in Australia, 1850–1940

  • MONICA J. KENELEY (a1)
Abstract

During the late nineteenth century, sales of life insurance products in Australia increased at a rapid rate. An investigation of the way in which life insurance products were targeted to the consumers provides insights not only into the marketing approaches, but also the changing nature of the mutual organization. This article uses a “stages” approach to analyze the evolution of the marketing message. The experience of Australian mutual insurers suggests that marketing strategies, as with other types of organizational skills, evolve in response to both the prevailing business environment and the ability of the firm to acquire and implement new knowledge and ways of conducting business.

Copyright
References
Hide All
Alborn, Timothy. Regulated Lives: Life Insurance and British Society, 1800–1914. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.
Bellis, Clare. The Future Managers Actuaries in Australia 1853–1997. Sydney: Institute of Actuaries, 1997.
Blainey, Geoffrey. A History of the AMP 1948–1998. St Leonards, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 1999.
Boyce, Gordon and Ville, Simon. The Development of Modern Business. New York: Palgrave, 2002.
ChandlerAlfred, D Alfred, D. Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1990.
Coghlan, Timothy A. A Statistical Account of the Seven Colonies of Australasia. Sydney: Government Printer, 1900.
Gray, Arthur C. Life Insurance in Australia, An Historical and Descriptive Account. Melbourne: McCarron Bird, 1977.
Murphy, Sharon. A. Investing in Life Insurance in Antebellum America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 2010.
Stalson, J. Owen. Marketing Life Insurance: Its History in America, Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1942.
Supple, Barry. The Royal Exchange Assurance: A History of British Insurance 1720–1970. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
Zelizer, Viviana A. Morals and Markets: The Development of Life Insurance in the United States. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979.
Borscheid, Peter. “Introduction.” In World Insurance: The Evolution of a Global Risk Network, edited by Borscheid, Peter and Haueter, Niels V., 134. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Carment, David. “Life Assurance in Australasia.” Proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of Actuaries (1904): 521549.
Church, Roy. “New Perspectives on the History of Products, Firms, Marketing and Consumers in Britain and the United States since the Mid Nineteenth Century.” Economic History Review, New Series 52, no. 3 (1999): 405435.
Hansmann, Henry. “The Organization of Insurance Companies, Mutual versus Stock.” Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 1 (1985): 125152.
Hollander, Stanley C., Rassulti, Kathleen M., Brian Jones, D.G., and Dix, Laura Fallow. “Periodization in Marketing History.” Marketing History 25, no. 1 (2005): 3241.
Keneley, Monica. “The Evolution of the Australian Life Insurance Industry.” Accounting, Business and Financial History 11, no. 2 (2001): 145170.
Keneley, Monica. “The Origins of Formal Collusion in Australian Fire Insurance 1870–1920.” Australian Economic History Review 42, no. 1 (2002): 5476.
Keneley, Monica. “In the Service of the Society: The Labour Management Practices of an Australian Life Insurer to 1940.” Business History 48, no. 4 (2006): 529550.
Keneley, Monica. “Organizational Capabilities and the Role of Routines in the Emergence of a Modern Life Insurer: The Story of the AMP.” Business History 51, no. 2 (2009): 248267.
Keneley, Monica. “The Demise of the Mutual Insurer: An Analysis of the Impact of Regulatory Change on the Performance of Australian Life Insurers.” Accounting History 15, no. 1 (2010): 6591.
Keneley, Monica. “The Path to Project Darwin: The Evolution of the AMP’s Organizational Structure.” Business History 54, no. 3 (2012): 346362.
Kobrak, Christopher. “USA: The International Attraction of the US Insurance Market.” In World Insurance: The Evolution of a Global Risk Network, edited by Borscheid, Peter and Haueter, Niels V., 274308. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
McFall, Liz and Dodsworth, Francis. “Fabricating the Market: The Promotion of Life Assurance in the Long Nineteenth-Century,” Journal of Historical Sociology 22, no. 1 (2009): 3254.
Maddock, Rodney and McLean, Ian. “The Australian Economy in the Very Long Run.” In The Australia Economy in the Long Run, edited by Maddock, Rodney and McLean, Ian, 518. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
McLean, Ian. “Australian Economic Growth in Historical Perspective.” Economic Record 80, no. 250 (2004): 330345.
Morton, Phillip H. “Some Problems of the New Life Insurance Companies in Australia.” Australasian Insurance and Banking Record (1929): 634635.
Pearson, Robin. “Introduction: Towards an International History of Insurance.” In The Development of International Insurance, edited by Pearson, Robin, 124. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2010.
Pearson, Robin. “United Kingdom: Pioneering Insurance Internationally.” In World Insurance: The Evolution of a Global Risk Network, edited by Borscheid, Peter & Haueter, Niels V., 6797. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Spratt, Walter. “Lessons Learned: British, American and Colonial Life Insurance in Australia.” Australasian Insurance and Banking Record (1968): 132134, 182–184.
Supple, Barry. “Corporate Growth and Structural Change in a Service Industry: Insurance, 1870–1914.” In Essays in British Business History edited by Supple, Barry, 6987. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Tedlow, Richard S. “The Fourth Phase of Marketing: Marketing History and the Business World Today.” In The Rise and Fall of Mass Marketing, edited by Tedlow, Richard S. and Jones, Geoffrey, 835. London: Routledge, 1993.
Teece, Richard. Address to NSW Insurance Institute. Australasian Insurance and Banking Record (1889): 272277.
Westall, Oliver. “David and Goliath: The Fire Offices Committee and Non-Tariff Competition, 1898–1907.” In The Historian and the Business of Insurance, edited by Westall, Oliver, 130154. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984.
Westall, Oliver. “Marketing Strategy and the Competitive Structure of British General Insurance, 1720–1980.” Business History 36, no. 2 (1994): 2046.
Nobbs, Raymond K. “Ventures in Providence: The Development of Friendly Societies and Life Assurance in Nineteenth Century Australia.” PhD dissertation. Sydney: Macquarie University, 1978.
Pursell, Gary. “The Development of Non Life Insurance in Australia.” PhD dissertation. Canberra: Australian National University, 1964.
Australasian Insurance and Banking Record, 1879–1900.
Post Magazine and Insurance Monitor, April 1885.
Sydney Morning Herald, 19 December 1877.
AMP. Prospectus, 1856. AMP Archives, Sydney.
AMP. Chairman’s Address Annual General Meeting, 1857. AMP Archives, Sydney.
AMP. Minutes of Annual General Meeting held on 4th February 1864. AMP Archives, Sydney.
AMP. Prospectus, 1865.
AMP. Prospectus and Table of Rates, 1875. AMP Archives, Sydney.
AMP General Manager’s Office correspondence, June 30, 1932; September 19, 1940.
AMP Guard Book 1930–1934. AMP Archives, Sydney.
National Mutual Life Association (NMLA). Prospectus and Table of Rates, 1878. AMP Archives, Sydney.
Recommend this journal

Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this journal to your organisation's collection.

Enterprise & Society
  • ISSN: 1467-2227
  • EISSN: 1467-2235
  • URL: /core/journals/enterprise-and-society
Please enter your name
Please enter a valid email address
Who would you like to send this to? *
×

Metrics

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 4
Total number of PDF views: 32 *
Loading metrics...

Abstract views

Total abstract views: 184 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between September 2016 - 13th June 2018. This data will be updated every 24 hours.