{"id":25323,"date":"2026-08-27T17:14:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T17:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.insurancejournal.com\/?p=883161"},"modified":"2026-08-27T17:14:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T17:14:16","slug":"mercury-insurance-founder-joseph-dies-at-age-104","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2026\/08\/27\/mercury-insurance-founder-joseph-dies-at-age-104\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercury Insurance Founder Joseph Dies at Age 104"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"nav nav-tabs tabs tabs-entry\">\n<li class=\"active\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.insurancejournal.com\/news\/west\/2026\/08\/27\/883161.htm\">Article<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.insurancejournal.com\/news\/west\/2026\/08\/27\/883161.htm?comments\" rel=\"nofollow\">0 Comments<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"article-content clearfix\">\n<p>George Joseph, who founded Mercury General Corp. nearly 65 years ago, has died at age 104, the company announced this week.<\/p>\n<p>Joseph served as chairman from the company\u2019s founding and led Mercury as CEO for 45 years, ending his time at the helm in 2006. After stepping down as CEO, he remained the company\u2019s as executive chairman.<\/p>\n<div class=\"bzn bzn-sized bzn-intext\">\n<ins data-revive-zoneid=\"79\" data-revive-block=\"1\" data-revive-id=\"36eb7c2bd3daa932a43cc2a8ffbed3a9\"><\/ins> <\/div>\n<figure id=\"attachment_883163\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-883163\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.insurancejournal.com\/app\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Joseph_George.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-883163\" src=\"https:\/\/www.insurancejournal.com\/app\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Joseph_George-150x150.png\" alt width=\"150\" height=\"150\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-883163\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">George Joseph<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>During his time as CEO, Mercury grew from a small California insurer with six employees and 90 agents into a large writer of private passenger automobile insurance. The company completed a public offering in 1985, and expanded beyond California beginning in 1989. It was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1996. The company\u2019s written premiums broke the $3 billion mark in 2006.<\/p>\n<p>Joseph was recognized during his career for his contributions, including being named \u201cCompany Person of the Year\u201d by the Professional Insurance Agents Association in 1987.<\/p>\n<p>Joseph was also known for his efforts to change Proposition 33, California\u2019s insurance law, which many carriers have blamed for forcing them to use outdated catastrophe models and for keeping them from raising rates to better reflect the state\u2019s growing wildfire risk.<\/p>\n<p>In 2010 and 2012, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.insurancejournal.com\/news\/west\/2012\/11\/07\/269694.htm\">he backed two insurance persistency initiatives<\/a> to change the law, in an effort he said would be good for consumers and create healthy competition among insurers. Both initiatives were defeated, though he personally sunk more than $16 million into backing them.<\/p>\n<p>In the past year, efforts to make changes to Prop. 103 have met with more success. California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara and the California Department of Insurance have been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.insurancejournal.com\/news\/west\/2026\/04\/20\/866640.htm\">trying to revamp the state\u2019s intervenor process<\/a>, in which groups or people are paid for intervening in rate hearings. That is one of several changes being made to the law to address a growing homeowners insurance crisis in California.<\/p>\n<p>Joseph was raised in Beckley, West Virginia, the son of Lebanese immigrants. During World War II, he served as a B-17 navigator and flew 50 missions. He later attended Harvard College on the GI Bill and graduated in 1949 with a degree in math and physics.<\/p>\n<div class=\"bzn bzn-sized bzn-intext-2\">\n<ins data-revive-zoneid=\"162\" data-revive-block=\"1\" data-revive-id=\"36eb7c2bd3daa932a43cc2a8ffbed3a9\"><\/ins> <\/div>\n<p>Mercury\u2019s board of directors appointed Gabriel Tirador as chairman of the board, effective immediately. He will continue to serve as CEO.<\/p>\n<p>Joseph\u2019s son, Victor Joseph, 39, has served as Mercury\u2019s president and chief operating officer since 2024. Joseph\u2019s wife, Vicky Joseph, assumed ownership of his Mercury General stock. She was elected to the company\u2019s board of directors in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Joseph is survived by his wife, five children and 10 grandchildren.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article-poll\" data-post=\"883161\">\n<div class=\"article-poll-vote\">\n<p>Was this article valuable?<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article-poll-feedback voted-no\">\n<form class=\"feedback-form\">\n<p>Thank you! Please tell us what we can do to improve this article.<\/p>\n<p> <textarea placeholder=\"Enter your feedback...\"><\/textarea> <button type=\"submit\" class=\"submit\" disabled>Submit<\/button> <button class=\"cancel\">No Thanks<\/button> <\/form>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article-poll-feedback voted-yes\">\n<form class=\"feedback-form\">\n<p>Thank you! <span class=\"percent\"><\/span>% of people found this article valuable. Please tell us what you liked about it.<\/p>\n<p> <textarea placeholder=\"Enter your feedback...\"><\/textarea> <button type=\"submit\" class=\"submit\" disabled>Submit<\/button> <button class=\"cancel\">No Thanks<\/button> <\/form>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article-poll-more-articles\">\n<p class=\"thank-you-text\">Here are more articles you may enjoy.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"subscribe-banner subscribe-banner-in-content-2\">\n<div class=\"content\">\n<h4>The most important insurance news,in your inbox every business day.<\/h4>\n<p>Get the insurance industry&#8217;s trusted newsletter<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Article 0 Comments George Joseph, who founded Mercury General Corp. nearly 65 years ago, has died at age 104, the company announced this week. Joseph served as chairman from the company\u2019s founding and led&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2224,1,76,9],"class_list":["post-25323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-mercury-insurance","tag-news","tag-proposition-103","tag-west-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/mercury-insurance-founder-joseph-dies-at-age-104.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}