They raised $100,000 to found the National Union Life & Limb Insurance Company. The group wanted to ensure Civil War soldiers and sailors that they would be taken care of when they got home.
That assurance would become the foundation of insurance and the ethos of newly named Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, which primary sold life insurance to the middle class in its early years.
Metropolitan became a mutual company in 1915 and began offering group insurance two years later.
The founders chose the name because they had been most successful in New York City, or the Metropolitan district.
In 1991, MetLife became the largest issuer of life insurance in all of North America, with over one trillion dollars of insurance in force. In 2000 MetLife ‘demutualized’ and became a publicly traded company. The following year it was allowed to enter the retail banking business.
It acquired New Jersey-based Grand Bank and renamed it MetLife bank in August 2000.
MetLife Inc.:One of the largest global providers of insurance
