Company History

1978 to 1983: The Early Years
The LIFE Financial Group, Inc. was founded by Roy L. Russell in 1978. At the age of 21 and after only a few weeks of marriage, Roy and his wife Lana discovered that their first of four children was on her way. Roy went to work selling life insurance from the basement of his humble home in Pottstown, PA. Though he had sales, Roy felt like a failure because it took 9 months of work before he had generated enough income for one month’s mortgage payment. He worked with several companies and learned to be a good salesman. However, as he got to know these companies, he was shocked to find that, while the promises of coverage were wonderful, the companies would sometimes look for any excuse not to pay a claim. Thus, Roy was no longer able to sell these products in good conscience. He learned that a person can be sincere but still sincerely wrong. This created a lingering distrust for insurance companies that only grew as time went on.

1983: A Pivotal Year
Three major events occurred in 1983 that shaped the future of The LIFE Financial Group. First, at the age of 27, Roy realized that, to be successful, he needed to act successful. So, he moved his office out of his home and into a professional office at 534 High Street in Pottstown, PA. He purchased the building which contained several apartments and used part of the first floor as his office. This increased his visibility to the community as well as his ability to service his clients. As the business grew, Roy was faced with the ethical dilemma of selling what was best for his clients (term insurance) or what would provide the most income for his growing family (whole life or cash value based insurance). With much prayer and reading of the Bible, he embarked on a quest to understand God's will regarding the use of money. This led to the second change – the application of Biblical principles in everything we do at The LIFE Financial Group, Inc. Roy’s study of God’s Word shaped his view of money (see The 5 Biblical Sequential Priorities). In a nutshell, Roy understood that God calls His people to handle their money by applying 5 basic priorities: Give, Save, Spend, Offerings, and Luxuries (click here). This led to the third major change – namely, refocusing his company’s efforts from selling what the companies wanted him to sell to providing what was most beneficial for the client. While Roy understood insurance to be a necessity in the modern economy, cash value based insurance was a luxury. The more important matter for his clients was building savings for the purposes of protecting and providing for the family. Insurance was now viewed as a way to buy time until a client’s savings was sufficient to provide for the family. Roy made the sacrifice and transitioned to selling term insurance instead of whole life insurance, because he now saw this as the right thing to do.

1984 to 1993: Becoming a Planner
As an insurance agent, Roy Russell began to understand the importance of saving and investing but did not have the capability of offering that kind of service to his clients. The more he learned about investing, the more he wanted to get involved with it. In 1985, Roy was presented with an excellent opportunity -- a chance to get licensed to sell securities. With this license, he could make a significant difference in the lives of his clients. After receiving his securities licenses, Roy’s primary focus became servicing his clients’ investment needs. Perhaps the most significant achievement of Roy’s career was in 1993, when he completed the Certified Financial PlannerTM program. It took roughly 900 hours of studying in order to pass this grueling exam to get his CFP^®. The education that he received provided him with detailed knowledge of the full range of investment products, income taxation, insurance planning, and estate planning. Roy was now able to be the full service planner that he knew his clients needed. He passed along this passion for financial planning to the entire staff at The LIFE Financial Group.

1993 to Present: Growing to Serve
The rest of the story about The LIFE Financial Group is one of growth. As Roy became more involved in servicing his clients’ investment needs, he understood that he needed to have a staff of well- trained, passionate people to help him. God began the process of bringing key people to the firm to help expand his advisory services and provide administrative support. In 1996, Roy moved the firm to its current Douglassville location. This enabled the firm to increase its capacity to service the ongoing needs of its clients. Our tax service was started in 1996 by Larry Russell (retired ’08), who joined the team in 1992. Michelle Hackman then helped to build our tax practice significantly when she joined us in 2002. Jim Rollick (retired ’07) brought us his pastor’s heart when he came to us in 1999. He helped to propel our ministry side by refining our teaching material and marketing the seminars. Doug Floro, CFP^®, joined the firm in 2000 and later became our Compliance Manager (OSJ) as well as one of our Senior Financial Advisors. We continue to add staff with the goal of increasing our capacity to serve and minister to our clients.

Our Ministry
In addition to helping our clients understand how to apply Biblical stewardship to their financial lives, we have also had the privilege of teaching these principles in churches, colleges, seminaries and camps all around the world. It all started as a result of Roy Russell’s growing understanding of God’s will regarding money which led to his teaching of these principles to his clients. In one such meeting in 1987, Roy was sharing these things with a client of his who was a pastor from Easton, PA. The pastor asked Roy to come to his church and teach these things to his congregation. This opportunity intimidated Roy since he wanted only to minister and not to profit from the church. Roy was very careful to not look like, act like, or smell like a salesmen at these meetings. God blessed these meetings, and Roy ended up gaining business simply from the exposure of the seminars, without trying to sell. In the early 90’s, the company’s name changed from Tri-County Brokers to Abundant Life Financial Services, Inc. to reflect the growing focus of servicing the Christian community. As the ministry grew, it developed into an information-packed 3-day seminar. Our firm was approached by Maranatha Baptist Bible College to represent their college at these seminars. They told us that they could teach the theology but not teach the application. This led to the development of the Legacy Institute for Financial Excellence which focused on teaching Biblical truths in a practical manner. In 2005, our name changed again to The LIFE Financial Group, Inc. using LIFE as an acronym for the Institute.