Discover Columbus Life Insurance Company

Hi, I’m Rob Deas and today with me in the studio is the CEO of Columbus Life Insurance Company, JJ Miller. Welcome to the studio.

Thank you.

Thank you for joining me today. So year after year, you guys just deliver incredible sales numbers. How do you guys do it?

Well, it’s mainly the people. I have a great group of people that I work with, I’m really blessed that way. It’s also, we have very good products and my people understand that relationships with the distributors is what really makes it work.

I’ve heard a lot of people say about you, even personally, that if they need to get you on the phone, they can. You’re an accessible guy.

Oh, absolutely. I pick my phone up. I don’t have my phone calls screened. I give my cards to all the producers. Any of them can call me any time. 

What do you love best about the actual culture that Columbus Life creates?

Oh, I think the best part, clearly, is the people you get to know and the relationships you get to build. I absolutely love all the relationships that I’ve built over the last 9 years with producers. I have so much fun going to company conventions and being with producers. I mean, it sounds old fashioned, but it’s true. I enjoy coming to work every day and getting to interface with all the people that I am blessed to get to work with.

Now what type of agents does Columbus Life like to do business with?

We have people that are really operate on their own as a personal producing general agent. We have agents that are with an agency, maybe there’s 20, 30 agents. We have some general agents that have huge agencies, you know, scattered around the country. So there’s not really one business model. 

What we look for are agents who, again, like to deal in a upper middle and affluent marketplace, that do a great job for their clients. So that’s what we’re all about is high quality. And we like to attract agents that really like to sell universal life products. That’s where our strong suit is, is universal life including indexed universal life. We’re very good at fixed annuities and we also now have indexed annuities. So those are the type of agents that we want to attract to Columbus Life. But first and foremost is very professional, high caliber, high quality people.

Why would an agency want to do business with Columbus Life?

Well the product is number one. Beyond that, it is relationships. They want to deal with people that care about them and provide good service to them and give them good follow up and answer the phone when they call. And we have just incomparable financial strength. Our company is wonderful at that.
We have very good products, we have very good support in terms of technological support, and then we have people that understand the independent distribution system and really give them great service is what differentiates Columbus Life.

So speaking of technology, how does that fit in with what you guys do at Columbus Life?

Well mainly, technology at Columbus is to support the agents. It doesn’t replace relationships, but it helps them do their business more efficiently all the way from electronic application right through the illustration system, right to the e-policy delivery. We’re actually trying to cut that time period in half. That’s a really aggressive goal. But we think it is possible through the use of a lot of technology. 

What do you see as the future of Columbus Life?

I see Columbus Life continue to give good products, continue to give great support. The financial strength of the company is a given. Western & Southern is so strong. And so I foresee in the near future, we’ll continue to tweak things to make them better, but just continue to do things well as we have been. It’s working, so why change it, you know?

If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.

Exactly.

There you go. What does JJ stand for?

I said I’d answer anything, so I guess I have to. It actually stands for Jimmy Joe.

Is it really?

Absolutely. That’s why it got shortened to JJ by my fraternity brothers in college. Through high school I was Jimmy Joe, starting out in college I became JJ. So and it has been ever since.

Ladies and gentlemen, JJ Miller, the CEO of Columbus Life Insurance Company. Thanks for being here today.

No, thank you.