A Divine Reminder: Integrity Over Advantage
In 1984, I was Senior Vice President at Maccabees Mutual Life Insurance Company in Southfield, Michigan. I oversaw product pricing and finance—an enormous responsibility that required difficult decisions almost every day. My faith in God guided me, and my determination to “do the right thing” was always at the forefront.
A Complex Industry Debate
At the time, the life insurance industry was embroiled in a long-standing dispute about corporate taxes. Mutual and stock companies operated under different structures, but both bore heavy tax burdens. Meanwhile, fraternal benefit societies—nonprofit insurers often founded by religious groups—paid no corporate taxes at all.
Maccabees Mutual had once been such a society, but after converting to a mutual company in March 1961, we joined the ranks of tax-paying insurers. By 1984, Congress was pushing through sweeping tax reform that would clarify how mutual and stock companies were to be taxed. Mutual company executives feared the new law would impose a disproportionate burden on them, and many launched desperate but unsuccessful lobbying efforts.
I shared their concerns, but until that point, I had relied on summaries from staff and consultants. Finally, as the bill reached its final stages in a joint Senate and House conference committee, I decided it was time to read the legislation myself.
“Hold all my calls,” I told my assistant as I carried the three-inch-thick draft into my office. “No interruptions for the whole afternoon.”
An Unexpected Discovery
For hours, I plowed through the dense legalese. Then I stumbled upon something startling: a provision granting tax relief to any mutual company that had converted from a fraternal society—if it had done so in 1950.
That meant just one company in the entire nation qualified. It was a classic pork-barrel clause, slipped into the legislation by a powerful lawmaker to benefit a single constituent.
I felt the injustice immediately. Picking up the phone, I called our chief tax officer. “Jerry, is there any way this provision can be expanded to encompass all mutual companies that converted from a fraternal benefit society?”
“Oh, Fred,” he sighed. “It’s way too late. The bill is already in conference committee.”
Discouraged but not deterred, I pressed on.
Fighting for Fairness—or So I Thought
Our company had no government affairs department, only an external lobbyist. He gave me the same answer: “It’s too late”.
Still, he agreed to contact Rep. Guy Vander Jagt of Michigan, who sat on the conference committee.
Meanwhile, I mobilized a research team to identify all other mutuals that had converted from fraternal companies. Within 48 hours, they found twenty such companies and estimated the revenue loss from expanding the exemption would be about $100 million annually—a drop in the bucket compared to total federal revenues.
Armed with data, I called tax officers at the other companies. To my dismay, none were interested. They had exhausted their political capital on other provisions and believed the effort was hopeless. The senator’s office that established the single company exemption, even warned me directly: “Drop it if you know what’s good for you.”
Still, I pushed forward. Our lobbyist presented the case to Rep. Vander Jagt, who surprised us by agreeing to submit the analysis. He warned that it was highly unlikely but said, “We need the analysis yesterday!” The next morning, the data was in his hands. All we could do was wait.
The Stunning Outcome
Weeks later, the final law arrived. I closed my door, opened the thick book, and nervously scanned the relevant section.
I expected one of two outcomes:
The exemption would be extended fairly to all twenty companies, or
The pork-barrel clause would be eliminated altogether.
Instead, I was stunned. The language now applied to: “mutual companies that had converted from fraternal benefit societies in 1950 or in March 1961.”
That meant two companies qualified for the exemption: the original beneficiary—and my company, Maccabees Mutual.
A Hollow Victory
I was swept into conflicting emotions. My company would save millions in taxes each year, and I was hailed internally as a hero. Yet I was deeply unsettled. My intent had been fairness, but I had become complicit in creating another pork-barrel clause—this time for my own employer.
I had fought for justice, but in the end, I had secured favoritism. What message was God sending me? On the surface, it was a career triumph. But spiritually, it was humbling.
From that point forward, I vowed to guard against pride and ambition clouding my values. I shared this story openly with colleagues—not as a tale of success, but as a cautionary reminder of the importance of humility, fairness, and integrity in leadership.
True leadership, I came to learn, isn’t about the recognition you receive. It’s about staying faithful to your values, even when the alternative looks like victory.
A Final Reflection
Looking back, I believe God allowed me to succeed in order to reveal my own weakness. My “victory” exposed the dangers of pride and self-interest, teaching me that no achievement is worth more than integrity.
From that day forward, I resolved to lead with humility, to measure success not by personal gain but by faithfulness to God’s standards of fairness and honesty. And that lesson—hard as it was—became one of the greatest blessings of my career.