Knights of Columbus Named a 2016 World's Most Ethical Company

NEW HAVEN, Conn., March 8, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Knights of Columbus has been recognized by the Ethisphere Institute, a global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices, as a 2016 World's Most Ethical Company.

This year marks the 10^th anniversary of Ethisphere and its World's Most Ethical Companies designation, which recognizes companies that align principle with action, work tirelessly to make trust a part of their corporate DNA, and help shape future industry standards by introducing tomorrow's best practices today.

The Knights of Columbus has been recognized as among the world's most ethical companies since 2014 and is one of only two in the life insurance category, underscoring the Knights' commitment to leading ethical business standards and practices.

"The Knights of Columbus was founded on providing financial security to our members and their families in keeping with Catholic values," said Knights of Columbus CEO Carl Anderson. "Those principles continued to guide our company as we grew into a top-rated insurer with the same ethical commitment in every aspect of our business, our corporate governance, our professional agency force, our investments, and our day-to-day business operations. It is this commitment to our Catholic principles that is the key to our ethical, sustainable and successful business model."

Companies rely on Ethisphere to continually raise and measure the standards of corporate behavior, said Ethisphere's CEO Timothy Erblich.

"Those that demonstrate leadership in areas like citizenship, integrity and transparency create more value for their investors, communities, customers and employees, thus solidifying a sustainable business advantage," said Erblich. "Congratulations to everyone at the Knights of Columbus for being recognized as a World's Most Ethical Company."

Methodology & Scoring
The World's Most Ethical Company assessment is based upon the Ethisphere Institute's Ethics Quotient™ (EQ) framework developed over years of research and vetted and refined by the expert advice from Ethisphere's World's Most Ethical Company Methodology Advisory Panel. The EQ offers a quantitative way to assess a company's performance in an objective, consistent and standardized way. The information collected provides a comprehensive sampling of definitive criteria for specific core competencies, generating scores in five key categories: ethics and compliance program (35 percent), corporate citizenship and responsibility (20percent), culture of ethics (20 percent), governance (15 percent) and leadership, innovation and reputation (10 percent).

Honorees
The full list of the 2016 World's Most Ethical Companies can be found at worldsmostethicalcompanies.ethisphere.com/honorees/. Best practices and insights from the 2016 honorees will be released in the form of a whitepaper and infographics over the next few months (download the 2015 insights). Organizations interested in how they compare to the World's Most Ethical Companies are invited to participate in the Ethics Quotient.

About the Knights of Columbus
Knights of Columbus offers top-rated life insurance to its members and their immediate families, and with its rating of A++ (Superior) from A.M. Best, no life insurer in North America is more highly rated. Despite the recession and slow recovery, since late 2000, when Anderson became CEO of the Knights, the organization's sales have grown for 15 consecutive years, and, as of late 2015, it has surpassed more than $100 billion in life insurance in force for an annual growth rate of 6.3 percent, and a 154 percent growth in insurance business in that same period. Members of the Knights of Columbus are organized in 15,000 councils around the world and are a strong charitable force within their communities, donating more than $173.5 million and 71.5 million hours to charitable causes in 2014 alone. More information is available at: www.kofc.org

About the Ethisphere Institute
The Ethisphere® Institute is the global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices that fuel corporate character, marketplace trust and business success. Ethisphere has deep expertise in measuring and defining core ethics standards using data-­driven insights that help companies enhance corporate character. Ethisphere honors superior achievement through its World's Most Ethical Companies® recognition program, provides a community of industry experts with the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA) and showcases trends and best practices in ethics with the publication of Ethisphere magazine. More information about Ethisphere can be found at: http://ethisphere.com.

SOURCE Knights of Columbus