In Memoriam: Lester A. Rosen, CLU

1962 MDRT President, Lester A. Rosen, CLU, of Memphis Tennessee, died on December 31 2006. He was 94. A 71-year member of MDRT, Rosen first qualified for membership in 1935. (for non insurance readers, 71 years of selling life insurance successfully) He attended 56 MDRT Annual meetings and was a Gold Knight of the MDRT Foundation.

Rosen was perhaps one of the only producers to pass the CLU exams before attaining the necessary three years of selling experience needed for the designation. While a student at Wharton School of the University of Pennsyvania, Philadelphia, he took all the available insurance courses and decided to sit for the CLU exams while the subjects were still fresh in his mind. "I passed the exams in 1933 and had to wait for three years of life experience before I could get the designation in 1936," Rosen said in a 1993 interview for Life & Health Insurance sales".

Upon graduating from the Wharton School, he joined the Union Central Life Insurance Co., now called UNIFI Mutual Holding Co., where he began gaining the experience he needed - and wanted. He stayed selling life insurance at the company for his entire career.

The day Rosen signed with Union Central, he was given a contract and rate book, and he applied for a license. "I learned quickly that (although) I had a B.S. in economics and a major in insurance, and had passed all CLU courses, no prospect was interested in that, " he said that in Life & Health Insurance Sales.

Rosen wasn't discouraged, however. "I worked days, nights, Saturday, Sunday, holidays - made no different," he continued in the same interview. "I talked life before I talked life insurance."

This attitude is one of the many reasons Rosen found success in the financial services industry, and he took pride in being known for his gentle, easy manner and commitment to his clients. "I never wanted to be known as a highly technically qualified insurance man. I was complimented when a client said, "Lester is a good life insurance man," he explained. "He meant that I understood life, that he recognized that he could place complete confidence in me and feel comfortable with me as person."

Leading MDRT

Rosen cherished his MDRT membership and valued the determination and motivation he needed to ensure he would qualify each year. "The benefits I have received from membership can only be measured in terms of business growth and the richness of friendship made throughtout the United States and around the world," he explained in "Looking at... The Way We Were," a compilation of 29 MDRT past presidents' thoughts on the financial services industry.

As the 1962 MDRT President, Rosen continued a mission he started in 1961, when he was the Annual Meeting Program Chair: introduction of the Whole Person concept. "MDRT meetings were targeted only to sales ideas," Rosen said in his MDRT past President's profile. "As a result of the introduction of the Whole Person concept in 1961, every subsequent meeting has either one or more Whole Person presentation."

Being about more than just the sale was key to Rosen's career in the financial services industry, as well as his MDRT leadership. "One cannot fulfill obligations to clients, to oneself, in fact, to the state, unless they remove themselves from narrow confines, step out of the square and become a whole person," he said in"Looking at ....The Way We Were."

A lesson we would all be better for remembering.

Lestor was definitely a man who really loved his career. Without that passion, he could never be able to sell for 71 years, almost to his dying day. Don't we think, this is the type of person we should respect and follow?