Lucile Finney Pryor was born June 10, 1909, in Columbus, Georgia, the granddaughter of slaves.
She was a poor, uneducated domestic worker who labored in the homes of southern white women in Troy, Alabama.
She extolled christian virtue, hard work, and education. She rummaged through garbage cans for books for her son to read and instilled in him a desire for education.
Mrs. Pryor purchased Life of Georgia policies for her family. After her death her son signed on to a class- action law suit regarding race-based policies sold by Life of Georgia six years prior to his death. The class action law- suit against Life Insurance of Georgia was filed in Florida in December 1999.
Life Insurance of Georgia is a subsidiary of the ING Group. It writes policies in eleven southeastern states.
Poor African-Americans "paid as much as 33% more than white customers for policies intended to cover burial expenses". The "companies calculated African Americans would have shorter life spans than white customers.The "insurance industry now acknowledges that poverty rather than race led to shorter lives for many of those against whom the companies discriminated."
The class-action law suit came too late for Mrs. Pryor. She died in 1988. The settlement came too late for her son. He died in 2008. Mrs. Pryor owned Life of Georgia policies on the following persons between 1939 and 1983: Lucile Finney, Julia Stewart, Maggie Felton, Susie Felton, Ruby Felton, John H, McNair, Moses Felton, Frederic Finney.
Mrs. Pryor would not have known the details of policies Life of Georgia sold her other than they were burial policies. She would have taken the agent's word at face value. She would not have evaluated or understood cost-ratio value. As a christian and responsible adult her primary concern was not to have a loved one, a member of her family, to die without some means of "putting them away at death. She did not expect to be shortchanged.
Part of the Life of Georgia settlement was used by the heir to memorialize Mrs. Pryor and a gift to an educational institution.
Sources: "Settlement Near for Insurer Accused of Overcharging Blacks, New York Times, January 10, 2009.
Personal Records of Mrs. Lucile Pryor.
