Insurance Glossary, Life Insurance

Innovation continued as well, as we developed new ways to insure recreational vehicles. In 1961, we introduced the first policy designed specifically for travel insurance trailers and added motor homes to our product lineup by the end of the decade. We also began to focus on safety and commissioned a study to determine the effects of strong winds on mobile homes. Done in conjunction with the University of Michigan, the study proved that mobile homes could be protected from damaging winds if they were anchored or tied-down to the ground. This lead to a national public relations insurance campaign:  “Wise up – tie down,” and a number of states enacted mandatory tie-down laws. This proactive campaign also proved to be effective during our claims responses to all of the strong hurricanes that hit the gulf and east coasts throughout the decade.

The 1970s:  Public Interests
Growth required change and the biggest change during the 1970s occured when Foremost went public in 1972. Going public offered Foremost even more opportunities to expand our offerings to include boats, motorcycles insurance , snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles and automobiles.

We also used the opportunity to provide more services to help our customers. We overhauled our policy language and provided our customers with the first Easy-to-Read mobile home and travel trailer insurance policies. We launched Fire Hurts! — a mobile home fire safety program that helped deter arson and we worked with Department of Housing and Urban Development to establish the original mobile home building codes.