New York Life
The Company You Keep
|
|
| Mutual | |
| Industry | Insurance: Life & Annuity |
| Founded | 1845 |
| Headquarters |
New York Life Building New York City, New York, U.S. |
|
Key people
|
Ted Mathas, CEO and Chairman |
| Revenue |
 $27.29 BillionUSD (2014) |
|
$2.024 BillionUSD (2014) |
|
|
Number of employees
|
12,000 (2014) |
| Website | www.newyorklife.com |
New York Life Insurance Company (NYLIC) is the largest mutual life-insurance company in the United States, and one of the largest life insurers in the world, ranking #61 on the 2016 Fortune 500 list, with about $550 billion in total assets under management, and more than $21 billion in surplus and AVR. In 2007, NYLIC achieved the best possible ratings by the four independent rating companies (Standard & Poor's, AM Best, Moody's and Fitch). Other New York Life affiliates provide an array of securities products and services, as well as institutional and retail mutual funds.
The company was founded in 1845 as the Nautilus Insurance Company in New York City, with assets of $17,000. It was renamed the New York Life Insurance Company in 1849. Its first headquarters were at 58 Wall Street from 1845 until 1846 at which time they were moved to 29 Wall Street. Subsequent addresses included 68 Wall Street, 106 Broadway, and 112-114 Broadway. The first president was James DePeyster Ogden, who served from 1845 until 1847. The current New York Life headquarters was designed by architect Cass Gilbert and completed in 1928. The New York Life Building, at 51 Madison Avenue, was constructed during the presidency of Darwin P. Kingsley. As with other early insurance companies in the U.S., in its early years (1846–1848), at the behest of its Southern agents, the company insured the lives of slaves for their owners. These policies were discontinued at the direction of the Trustees on April 19, 1848. The total claims paid on slaves' lives totaled $1,050. Nautilus sold 485 slaveholder life insurance policies during a two-year period in the 1840s. Their trustees voted to end the sale of such policies 15 years before the Emancipation Proclamation.
In 1860, before state laws required it, New York Life developed the non-forfeiture option, the predecessor to the guaranteed cash values of modern policies, under which a policy remains in force even if a premium payment is missed. It was also the first American life insurance company to pay a cash dividend to policyholders, and the first U.S. company to issue policies to women at the same rates as men. Susan B. Anthony was one of their first female policy holders, and her father worked for NYLIC. In 1896, New York Life became the first company to insure people with disabilities and the first to issue a policy with a disability benefit that presumes total disability to be permanent after a predetermined period.
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Wikipedia