# JC Penney

During the Great Depression, J.C. Penney saved his collapsing retail chain from bankruptcy by borrowing against the cash value of his life insurance policies to meet payroll and keep the stores afloat.

- Source: https://lifeupskill.com/ideas/jc-penney
- Publisher: LifeUpSkill
- Author: Francis Joseph Martinez
- Topic: Insurance Stories
- Published: 2026-09-09
- Updated: 2026-09-09

## Clothing Mogul

James Cash Penney. He named his first store the Golden Rule. Treat people the way you'd want to be treated. That was the whole business. He built it from one store in Wyoming to fourteen hundred.

## Payroll Panic

Then the crash of 1929. His stocks went. His personal fortune, basically gone. And the payroll was still due. All those people in all those stores, still needing to get paid.

> We must do to everyone as we wish to be done by.
>
> — James Cash Penney

## Saving for a rainy day

There was one thing the crash didn't touch. His life insurance policies. He borrowed against them to meet payroll. The money he'd set aside in case he died went to pay people while he was still alive.

## Versatile tool

He bought that policy for one reason. It ended up doing something else entirely. That's the part people miss. You don't buy it for what you think will happen. You buy it for the thing you can't see yet.

## Built to last

That was 1931. JCPenney is still open today. 124 years after he started with one store in Wyoming, you can still walk into one. Around 640 of them across the US.