Pacific Life

Pacific Life Insurance Company

Headquarters in Newport Beach
Type	Mutual insurance
Industry	Insurance; life investment products
Founded	1868
Founder	Leland Stanford
Headquarters	Newport Beach, California, United States
Key people	James T. Morris, Chairman, President & CEO
Parent	Pacific Mutual
Website	www.pacificlife.com

Pacific Life Insurance Company is an American insurance company providing life insurance products, annuities, and mutual funds, and offers a variety of investment products and services to individuals, businesses, and pension plans. Pacific Life also counts more than half of the 100 largest U.S. companies as clients.

Pacific Mutual Life was founded in 1868 by former California Governor Leland Stanford in Sacramento, California. Stanford also was the first policy holder of the company. After Stanford died and his university (Stanford University) was strapped for money, his wife used the money from the policy to pay for professors. Starting in 1885, Pacific Mutual Life began issuing accident insurance, which was an innovative move for a life insurance company at the time. In 1906, Pacific Mutual Life merged with Conservative Life, a Los Angeles-based life insurance company. Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Pacific Mutual Life's board of directors moved the company to Los Angeles.

During the Great Depression, the company was hit with hard times and in 1936 in an effort to save both the policy holders and the company the insurance commissioner, Samuel L. Carpenter, encouraged the policy holders to become part owners of the company through mutualization. In 1955, Pacific Mutual Life became the first company west of the Mississippi River to use the brand new technology of Univac I. At Pacific Mutual Life's one-hundredth birthday the company celebrated with keynote speaker Ronald Reagan. In 1971, the company started Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO). The company moved its headquarters to their current Newport Beach, California location in 1972 when management decided that Newport Beach would provide a higher standard of living for their families. In 1997, the company dropped mutual from its name, changing it to Pacific Life Insurance Company. This reflects the company structure's change from a mutual ownership to a mutual holding company structure. Also in 1997, the company adopted the humpback whale as symbol of the company because of the whale's persistence, performance, and strength.