ITT Insurance Chief Quits

Robert W. MacDonald resigned as president and chief executive of ITT Life Insurance Corp., based in Minneapolis.

MacDonald left ITT, he said, to form a company to acquire an existing life insurance company to be owned by agents and investors. His aim, he said, is to create the first life insurance company in which the agents who sell the products have not only a stake in the company but a direct effect on its management.

Joining MacDonald in the venture are three former ITT Life executives: Dan Rourke as senior vice president and director of marketing; Joe Carlson, vice president and controller, and Peyton Huffman, vice president and chief actuary. Donald Urban, a former field marketing director with ITT, will also help form the new company.

MacDonald became a controversial and innovative figure in the life insurance business in 1982 when he declared that the traditional “whole life” policies were obsolete and that ITT Life would no longer offer them. Under him the company also offered discounts for physically fit nonsmokers and “unisex” policies that charged the same premium rates for males and females.

He also supported marketing of insurance through banks, a move opposed by many in the industry.