The story
Founded by American Farm Bureau Federation in 1939.1
The company traces its history to the Great Depression in the 1930s, when the Iowa chapter of the Farm Bureau established Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company in 1939 to sell insurance to farmers.
Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company was founded as Iowa Life Insurance Company on October 30, 1944, and opened for business in 1945.
Over the years, various state Farm Bureaus merged their insurance company operations into the company.
In July 1996, FBL Financial Group was listed on the New York Stock Exchange at a split-adjusted initial public offering price of $8.75.
In 2003, one of FBL's primary operating subsidiaries, EquiTrust Life Insurance Company, began selling single premium deferred annuity products nationally through independent marketing companies. The following year, it began selling indexed annuity products. In 2011, FBL sold EquiTrust Life to a controlled affiliate of Guggenheim Partners.
In 2018, FBL Financial Group incorporated FBL Holdings as a standalone subsidiary, a diversified asset fund that specializes in digital assets management and securities.
On November 18, 2019, FBL appointed Daniel D. Pitcher CEO to replace Jim Brannen.
FBL's quarter-century as a publicly traded company ended in 2021, when Farm Bureau Property & Casualty Insurance Company (FBPCIC) bought all the Class A and Class B common stock that neither FBPCIC nor the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation already owned. On May 25, 2021, FBPCIC announced that it had bought up the remaining shares for $61 apiece in cash.
From Wikipedia’s article on FBL Financial Group, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.7