George Joseph. Picture credit: AP

The founder of LA based general life- insurance firm, Mercury General Corporation, George Joseph is 101 year old American billionaire businessman.

Early Life

Son of Lebanese immigrants, George was 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 in 1921 in Beckley, West Virginia and was brought up during the Great Depression and faced their fair share of struggle growing up. During times when world powers were fighting George too served his country. Just before the United States entered the war, Joseph offered to join the United States Army Air Corps and completed 50 missions over North Africa and Italy when America finally got involved. Joseph, who had a knack for maths, was made the navigator of his unit as per Money reports.

After completing his schooling he attended Harvard University and graduated with a with majors in math and physics in 1949 as per Forbes. Joseph joined Occidental Life Insurance Company as a system analyst in Los Angeles. He went door-to-door in the nights to sell life insurance.

Career

He quit Occidental in 1954 after receiving a rejection to a proposal he made to the company about expanding into other areas. He then opened his own insurance company in California, and combined the life insurance policies he was currently selling with property and casualty insurance and motor insurance. In 1962 he founded Mercury General after accumulating $2 million in capital.

According to Forbes report he owns 34% of the publicly-traded insurance firm, offering automotive, home and fire insurance.

The company as per Forbes 2023 report earns $3.5 billion in annual revenues.