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Landmark’s history in Brownwood dates back more than a half-century, and a third-generation member of the family is guiding the business in a new direction.
Chris Munson, 32, is the Chief Legal Officer for what is now known as Landmark Admin LLC, formerly Landmark Life.
“We’ve been in a transition,” Munson said. “We started a new TPA company. We’re selling the life insurance company and we’re focusing on servicing policies for other life insurance companies.”
Munson further elaborated, saying “We started a new company, strictly a third-party administrative company. We’ve traditionally been a life insurance company since the 1960s. My granddad, Putter Jarvis, and his father-in-law started it back then. Ever since then it’s been a family-owned life insurance company. My dad came on in the 90s. In 2009, they started doing third part administrative work, which is basically back-office work for other life insurance companies who are outsourcing customer service, application intake, and claims processing.”
Munson joined the family business six years ago and since that point the number of employees has nearly doubled.
“In 2016 I was given the chance to come back and work at Landmark and we had about 61 employees whenever I joined, and now we’re up to 113,” Munson said. “This TPA business has really been the reason for that growth, and we have decided to focus on just that.”
The growth of the company has now led to three locations opening throughout Brownwood.
“We have the office near 3M on County Road 225, we have the old motor bank across from the post office that we do the mail scanning from, and now we have the old Bank of America that I work in, the building across from Lucille + Mabel, and we have a lot of people down here,” Munson said.
Regarding Munson’s responsibilities with the company, he said, “I head up customer service in our agency division. The agency will pay a bunch of commissions out to all the agents, as the premiums come in the agents get paid. We receive that for about nine companies. Then with customer service, we handle any questions that customers may have, whether it’s paying off a loan balance or changing beneficiaries, we change that for the customers. We kind of have two customers, the life insurance companies we’re doing work for, and the other is the actual policy holder and the beneficiaries, so we’re working to satisfy both as best we can.”
The most rewarding aspect of the job, according to Munson, is, “getting to know all these employees I get to work with. I grew up in Brownwood and have good friends, but now that we’re in the professional space I have about 30 people that work under me. There’s a lot of good people in Brownwood and I get to build these relationships with the people I work with. Providing a nice job atmosphere for 100-plus people is also pretty cool.”
As for the future of Landmark, Munson said, “We plan on working this TPA business for a while. I don’t see Landmark going anywhere any time soon. For my path, we’ll see how it goes. We’re growing and don’t have any intentions on stopping. One of our bigger clients is selling life insurance like I’ve never seen. They have an agency that’s nationwide and they’re doing incredible amounts of business. They’re keeping us busy.”
Away from the office, Munson is a member of the Brownwood Public Library Board, the ABC Club, and he coaches a youth soccer team.
“Outside of work it’s a few community things, but really, it’s spending a lot of time with my family,” Munson said. “One of the beauties of being in Brownwood is there’s just so much to do. It’s crazy where Brownwood is now compared to when I was growing up. I loved growing up here, we didn’t need much to do, but as a young adult with a young family we’re taking advantage of the revitalization of downtown and the city parks upgrades, like the splash pads. We get to spend a lot of time benefiting from what those that are leading the city have provided for us.”
Munson and his wife, Claire, have two sons, 3-year-old, Jack, and 10-month-old, Ben.
“My wife is from Dallas, and she told me she would never live in Brownwood but life changes,” Munson said. “We had our first kid, and she was onboard with the move and has loved it. Our little boys keep life fun and interesting. My parents, Tom and Jayme, they trusted me to come work for the company and it’s been a great move for everybody.”