Property and Casualty Insurance Business
The Property & Casualty Insurance segment provides automobile, homeowners,
renters, fire, umbrella and other types of property and casualty insurance to
individuals and commercial automobile insurance to businesses. Property insurance
indemnifies an insured with an interest in physical property for loss of, or
damage to, such property. Casualty insurance primarily covers liability for
damage to property of, or injury to, a person or entity other than the insured.
In most cases, casualty insurance also obligates the insurance company to provide
a defense for the insured in litigation arising out of events covered by the
policy.
The Property & Casualty Insurance segment distributes its products primarily
through independent agents and brokers who are paid commissions for their services.
The Property & Casualty Insurance segment’s direct-to-consumer operations,
which were placed into run-off in 2012, accounted for approximately 6% of the
Property & Casualty Insurance segment’s earned premiums in 2015. In
addition, the Life & Health Insurance segment’s career agents also
sell contents coverage for personal property to its customers.
Life and Health Insurance Business
The Company’s Life & Health Insurance segment consists of Kemper’s
wholly-owned subsidiaries, United Insurance Company of America (“United
Insurance”), The Reliable Life Insurance Company (“Reliable”),
Union National Life Insurance Company (“Union National Life”), Mutual
Savings Life Insurance Company (“Mutual Savings Life”), United Casualty
Insurance Company of America (“United Casualty”), Union National
Fire Insurance Company (“Union National Fire”), Mutual Savings Fire
Insurance Company (“Mutual Savings Fire”) and Reserve National Insurance
Company (“Reserve National”). United Insurance, Reliable, Union
National Life, Mutual Savings Life, United Casualty, Union National Fire and
Mutual Savings Fire (the “Kemper Home Service Companies”) distribute
their products through a network of employee, or “career,” agents.
Reserve National distributes its products through a network of independent agents
and brokers. These career agents, independent agents and brokers are paid commissions
for their services.
The Kemper Home Service Companies, based in St. Louis, Missouri, focus on providing
individual life and supplemental accident and health insurance products to customers
of modest incomes who desire basic protection for themselves and their families.
Their leading product is ordinary life insurance, including permanent and term
insurance. Face amounts of these policies are lower than those of policies typically
sold to higher income customers by other companies in the life insurance industry.
Approximately 78% of the Life & Health Insurance segment’s premium
revenues are generated by the Kemper Home Service Companies.
The Kemper Home Service Companies employ nearly 2,200 career agents to distribute
insurance products in 25 states and the District of Columbia. These career agents
are full-time employees who call on customers in their homes to sell insurance
products, provide services related to policies in force and collect premiums,
typically monthly. Premiums average about $20 per policy per month with an average
face value of $5,300. Permanent and term policies are offered primarily on a
non-participating, guaranteed-cost basis. These career agents also distribute
and/or service certain property insurance products for the Kemper Home Service
Companies.