Kriss Cloninger III knows that insurance is a very competitive industry.
As president and CFO of Aflac Inc., not only does he have to compete with other insurance companies for customers, he has to compete for employees, as well. To overcome that challenge, Cloninger and chairman and CEO Dan Amos have made it a point to be very self-critical.
“We try to find weaknesses in what we are doing, looking at ourselves as if we were the competitor and trying to address what it is that Aflac is doing that a competitor could come in and try to do differently,” says Cloninger.
And that means taking a proactive approach to ensure that they are providing the best products and services for their policyholders. Members of management regularly performs a SWOT (strategies, weaknesses, opponents and threats) analysis of the company, in which they evaluate existing products, experiment with new products and look for ways to tap into new markets.
From those regular analyses came a two-part plan to continue to grow the $14 billion supplemental insurance company — expand Aflac’s product line and grow its distribution system of independent sales associates and insurance brokers.
