In March 1901, Pacific Mutual policyholder Nina Liggett wrote Ira Jackson, Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company’s general agent in Denver, to let him know just what she thought of his company.

To her, it was wonderful.

A few years prior, Liggett had taken out a 20-year endowment policy. The policy returned a predetermined sum at the end of the term as long as each premium was paid, or the policy was paid out to the beneficiary upon the policyowner’s death. For women in the early 1900s, opportunities to save for old age weren’t exactly around every corner, and companies couldn’t be counted on to treat women fairly.

“With each year’s payment of premium, I realize that I am enriching my estate, and making a provision for the future that is extremely gratifying for me,” Liggett wrote. “In making as it does, no distinction between men and women as to the cost of insurance [Pacific Mutual] should commend itself to the representative women of the country.”