For decades, one of the life insurance industry's proudest claims was that no life insurance company had failed during the Great Depression.

The message was that the life insurance industry's conservative management and investment approach meant you could always count on your insurance company to be around to pay claims as they came due.

Then, in the late 1980s, the industry experienced increased competition, leveraged buyouts and aggressive investment. The result was that more than a dozen life insurance companies "went under" (were taken over by their state regulators), starting with Executive Life in 1991.

When Executive Life failed, there were lots of "I told you so's." It was a relatively new company by insurance standards, and a stock insurance company to boot.

But with the failure of Mutual Benefit - a mutual insurance company with a 100-year history - the insurance world realized that even the well-established mutual insurance companies were at risk as well. (A mutual insurance company is owned by policyholders, while stock insurance companies are owned by stockholders.)

Now, before you buy any life insurance products, you'd better know how strong your company's financial stability is. The result of these failures was that some annuity payments and cash values were cut substantially, and loans and death benefit payments were delayed.

The ratings services, state regulators and insurance companies themselves have all tightened up their operations and oversight, so that a repeat of the early 1990s likely won't happen.

But no one can predict the future, and no one person - actuary, life insurance agent, etc. - knows more than the combined expertise of the rating services. Don't be talked into buying a policy from a less-than-acceptable company.