MetLife


MetLife, Inc. is the holding corporation for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, better known as MetLife, and its affiliates. MetLife is among the largest global providers of insurance, annuities, and employee benefit programs, with around 90 million customers in over 60 countries. The firm was founded on March 24, 1868. MetLife ranked No. 43 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.
On January 6, 1915, MetLife completed the mutualization process, changing from a stock life insurance company owned by individuals to a mutual company operating without external shareholders and for the benefit of policyholders. After 85 years as a mutual company, MetLife demutualized into a publicly traded company with an initial public offering in 2000. Through its subsidiaries and affiliates, MetLife holds leading market positions in the United States, Japan, Latin America, Asia's Pacific region, Europe, and the Middle East. MetLife serves 90 of the largest Fortune 500 companies.
MetLife's head offices and boardroom are located at the MetLife Building at 200 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan and New York City which MetLife owned from 1981 to 2005; despite the sale, MetLife increased its leased footprint in the building beginning in 2015.
In January 2016, MetLife announced that it would spin off its U.S. retail business, including individual life insurance and annuities for the retail market, in a separate company called Brighthouse Financial, which launched in March 2017. The continuing MetLife company kept naming rights to MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

History

Early years

The predecessor company to MetLife began in 1863 when a group of New York City business leaders raised to found the National Union Life and Limb Insurance Company headquartered on lower Broadway. The company insured Civil War sailors and soldiers against disabilities due to wartime wounds, accidents, and sickness. Millions of "industrial" or workingman's policies were sold, costing five to ten cents a week, which were collected at the policyholder's home. On March 24, 1868, it became known as Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and shifted its focus to the life insurance business.
The Chicago fire of 1871 that destroyed 2,000 acres and $200 million worth of property, severely affected the insurance companies, which were legally obligated but financially unable to cover losses. Then, severe business depression that began with the Panic of 1873 forced the company to contract, until it reached its lowest point in the late 1870s. After observing the insurance industry in Great Britain in 1879, MetLife President Joseph F. Knapp brought "industrial" or "workingmen's" insurance programs to the United States – insurance issued in small amounts on which premiums were collected weekly or monthly at the policyholder's home. By 1880, sales had exceeded a quarter million of such policies, resulting in nearly $1 million in revenue from premiums. In 1909, MetLife had become the nation's largest life insurer in the United States, as measured by life insurance in force.
In 1890, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Building was commissioned to serve as MetLife's home office on 23rd Street in Manhattan. The building was completed in stages through 1905. A clock tower was commissioned adjacent to the home office in 1907, and when completed two years later, the building was the world's tallest until 1913. The home office complex, which came to include the later art deco Metropolitan Life North Building, remained the company's headquarters until 2005. For many years, an illustration of the Metropolitan Life Tower featured prominently in MetLife's advertising.
In 1905, a predecessor company, New England Life, lost a legal case, Pavesich v. New England Life Insurance Company, where they attempted to use an image of another person for promotion but this was ruled a breach of privacy and libelous: this case became a standardly cited case on privacy in US law.
By 1930, MetLife insured one of five men, women, and children in the United States and Canada. During the 1930s, it also began to diversify its portfolio by reducing the percentage of individual mortgages in favor of public utility bonds, investments in government securities, and loans for commercial real estate. The company financed the Empire State Building's construction in 1929 as well as provided capital for Rockefeller Center's construction in 1931. During World War II, MetLife placed more than 51 percent of its total assets in war bonds and was the largest single private contributor to the Allied cause.

Postwar

During the post-war era, the company expanded its suburban presence, decentralized operations, and refocused its career agency system to serve all market segments. It also began to market group insurance products to employers and institutions. By 1979, operations were segmented into four primary businesses: group insurance, personal insurance, pensions, and investments. In 1981 MetLife purchased the Pan Am Building from a group that included Pan American World Airways for the price of $400 million. The building was subsequently renamed and the prominently displayed Pan Am logo was replaced with the MetLife logo.

De-mutualization and IPO

In 2000, MetLife converted from a mutual insurance company operated for the benefit of its policyholders to a for-profit public company. The de-mutualization process allowed MetLife to enter unrelated insurance businesses and increase executive compensation.
Policyholders received some stock in the new company in this process. MetLife was accused of breaching federal securities laws by misrepresenting and omitting information in materials given to policyholders during this process, resulting in years of litigation ending with a $50 million settlement in 2009.

Acquisitions, sales, and major deals

  • 1992 – merged with United Mutual Life Insurance Company, the only African-American life insurer in New York, in 1992.
  • 1992 – acquired Executive Life's single premium deferred annuity business, which was worth approximately $1.2 billion. MetLife also acquired the firm's life insurance business, valued at about $260 million.
  • 1995 – sold Century 21 to Cendant while purchasing New England Mutual Life Insurance Company.
  • 1997 – acquired Security First Group in 1997 for $377 million.
  • 1999 – acquired Lincoln National Corporation's individual disability income unit.
  • 1999 – bought out reinsurance provider GenAmerica Corporation for $1.2 billion, as well as its subsidiaries, Reinsurance Group of America and Conning Corporation. That year, the company had grown to serve 7 million policyholders.
  • 2000 – de-mutualization and IPO. The initial public offering was valued at $6.5 billion, which was the largest IPO to that date in United States financial history. MetLife policyholders were asked to choose a cash or stock stake. This IPO made MetLife the most widely owned stock in the United States, and it raised MetLife's value to over $4 billion. By 2000, MetLife's reported number of policyholders had risen to 11 million, and that year it had become the United States' number one life insurer, surpassing Prudential, according to The New York Times.
  • 2000 – $470 million voice and data network management deal with AT&T Solutions.
  • 2001 – acquired Grand Bank of Kingston, New Jersey, which was renamed MetLife Bank.
  • 2001 – invested $1 billion in the United States stock market during 2001, immediately after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
  • 2005 – acquired Citigroup’s Travelers Life & Annuity and all of Citigroup's international insurance businesses for $11.8 billion. At the time of the deal, which was completed on July 1, 2005, the Travelers acquisition made MetLife the largest individual life insurer in North America based on sales.
  • 2006 – opened joint-venture insurance company in Shanghai, in May 2006.
  • 2006 – sold Peter Cooper Village, or Stuyvesant Town, the largest apartment complexes in New York City at the time, for $5.4 billion. MetLife had developed the apartment complexes between 1945 and 1947, to house veterans returning home from serving in World War II.
  • 2010 – bought American Life Insurance Company from AIG for.
  • 2011 – sold MetLife bank to GE Capital, exiting banking business.
  • 2021 – Farmers Insurance Group acquired the MetLife Auto & Home business from MetLife, Inc.

    Current era

From 2004 to 2011, MetLife continued to hold its position as the largest life insurer in the United States. The company had $2.5 trillion in policies written, $350 billion in assets under management, over 12 million customers in the United States, 8 million customers outside the United States, and a net income in 2003 of $2.2 billion. That year, Barron's reported that 13 million American households owned at least one product from MetLife.
MetLife named Robert H. Benmosche as chairman and CEO in July 1999. Benmosche occupied the position until 2006, when he was replaced by C. Robert Henrikson.
The company's sales grew 11.5% between 2008 and 2009, despite the national recession. In 2011, CEO Robert Henrikson was replaced by Steven A. Kandarian, who had overseen the company's " investment portfolio" as chief investment officer. Henrikson remained the company's chairman to the end of 2011, at which point he reached the company's mandatory retirement age.
In 2015, MetLife was ranked as number one on Fortune magazine's list of World's Most Admired Companies in the Insurance: Life and Health category.
In the summer of 2017, MetLife plans to add a third office building of 255,000 square feet at its Cary, North Carolina Global Technology Campus, giving the company a total of 655,000 square feet at a location which has over 1,000 employees in such areas as engineering, software and technology. This plan was the result of North Carolina awarding the company $94 million in incentives in 2013 for creating over 2,600 jobs, half in Cary and half in Charlotte.