George Joseph

Age: 76

Net Worth: $1.3 billion

Source of Wealth: Insurance

Residence: Los Angeles

Mercury General Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive George Joseph demonstrated a knack for numbers when he completed his math studies at Harvard in just three years.

More than five decades later, Joseph is still showing his knack. An avid tennis player, Joseph is said to have an encyclopedic knowledge of auto insurance rates and regulations and runs one of the top 30 public companies in L.A. County.

Mercury General, one of the first companies to offer auto insurance in Los Angeles, had net income of $156.3 million in 1997 up from $105.8 million in 1996. The company’s stock has soared in the past year from $31 to around $63.

Joseph has 18.9 million shares of stock in Mercury General 34.2 percent of the outstanding stock which puts his stake at about $1.2 billion.

Joseph’s first job after Harvard was as a rate adjuster for Occidental Life Insurance Co. He later became a life-insurance salesman for the company.

Joseph formed Mercury General in 1962 a time when Angelenos were taking to the freeways as the Red Car trolleys were ditched. Joseph took Mercury General public twice, the last time in 1985.

Joseph, a past president of the Association of California Insurance Companies, has been active in fighting state legislation hostile toward insurance companies.