K of C sees commitment to Catholic values as key to its ethical, sustainable, successful business model

Contact: Andrew Walther, Knights of Columbus, 203-752-4253, Andrew.Walther@kofc.org; Clea Nabozny, Ethisphere, 480-397-2658, Clea.Nabozny@ethisphere.com

NEW HAVEN, Conn., March 21, 2014 /Standard Newswire/ -- The Knights of Columbus have been recognized by the Ethisphere Institute, an independent center of research promoting best practices in corporate ethics and governance, as a 2014 World's Most Ethical Company.®

This is the first time that the Knights of Columbus has been honored with this award, which recognizes organizations that continue to raise the bar on ethical leadership and corporate behavior. World's Most Ethical Company honorees understand the correlation between ethics, reputation and daily interactions with their brand and that the award belongs as much to their associates as it does to them. The Knights is one of only two companies in the life insurance category honored this year.

"The Knights of Columbus was founded more than 130 years ago to protect the financial future of Catholic families in the event of the tragic death of a breadwinner and to provide charity to those on the margins of society," said Knights of Columbus CEO Carl Anderson. "Today, those same founding principles are at work in every aspect of our business, guiding our corporate governance, our professional agency force, our investments, and our day-to-day business operations. It is this continued commitment to our foundational, Catholic principles that is the key to our ethical, sustainable and successful business model."

"The entire community of World's Most Ethical Companies believe that customers, employees, investors and regulators place a high premium on trust and that ethics and good governance are key in earning it," said Ethisphere Chief Executive Officer Timothy Erblich. "The Knights of Columbus join an exclusive community committed to driving performance through leading business practices. We congratulate everyone at Knights of Columbus for this extraordinary achievement."

The World's Most Ethical Company assessment is based upon the Ethisphere Institute's Ethics Quotient™ framework. The Ethics Quotient framework has been developed over years of effort to provide a means to assess an organization's performance in an objective, consistent and standardized way. The information collected provides a comprehensive sampling of definitive criteria of core competencies, rather than all aspects of corporate governance, risk, sustainability, compliance and ethics. The Ethics Quotient framework and methodology was determined, vetted and refined by the expert advice and insights gleaned from Ethisphere's network of thought leaders and from the World's Most Ethical Company Methodology Advisory Panel.

Scores are generated in five key categories: ethics and compliance program (25%), reputation, leadership and innovation (20%), governance (10%), corporate citizenship and responsibility (25%) and culture of ethics (20%).

The full list of the 2014 World's Most Ethical Companies can be found at ethisphere.com/worlds-most-ethical/wme-honorees/.

About Knights of Columbus
Knights of Columbus is a fraternal benefit society founded in 1882 in New Haven, Conn., to protect the financial futures of Catholic families and to engage in charitable activity. 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, Knights of Columbus’ sales have grown for 13 consecutive years, and it has logged $72 billion in new sales in the past decade for an annual growth rate of 4.6 percent, and an 89 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 $167.5 million and 70 million hours to charitable causes last year alone. More information is available at: www.kofc.org

About the Ethisphere Institute
The Ethisphere® Institute is an independent center of research, best practices and thought leadership that promotes best practices in corporate ethics and governance and enables organizations to improve compliance, mitigate risk, and enhance relationships with employees, business partners, investors and the broad regulatory community. Ethisphere evaluates and benchmarks compliance and governance programs, honors superior achievement through its World’s Most Ethical Companies® recognition program and publishes Ethisphere Magazine. Ethisphere is also the leading provider of independent verification of corporate ethics and compliance programs that include: Ethics Inside® Certification, Compliance Leader Verification™ and Anti-Corruption Program Verification™. More information about Ethisphere can be found at: www.ethisphere.com.