Wherever people live.
Whether it be in our largest cities in smaller communities in scattered settlements
from the Atlantic to the Pacific men build security for themselves with an urgent
UN chaining of the elements from ocean to Aleutian millions
and millions of people making better more secure lives for their families have
adopted the land with home farm buildings factories
hotels apartment houses stately public edifices
office buildings symbolism security for all of us if these buildings could talk
was a story they could tell only they could speak.
If only they could speak you say if that's an invitation. I'll accept it.
I speak for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.
It's our job to help take some of the worry out of life for our family
and policyholders all working together through the metropolitan for greater
security for better health for longer life
and happiness through the years I have grown a lot ever had to grow
to keep up with our growing family of policyholders
and give them the services they need and want but I wasn't always this size.
Here's where I was born in this tiny space on the second floor.
Yes that was way back on March twenty fourth eighteen sixty eight
when you come in for a visit
and get a break picture of how a life insurance company operates.
Here you are right through that door.
First let's stop in to see the man who has been serving metropolitan policy holders
longer than anyone else sixty odd years.
He started as a mail boy and worked up to become president
and then chairman of the board. Frederick a tech How do you do.
I hope you will enjoy your visit with us.
We want to give you an inside understanding of this business of providing
protection for people.
It's an interesting message that not only benefits our policy holders
and their partners but also helps the community
and the nation in a wide variety of ways shaving thirty two million in the United
States and Canada. It's quite an undertaking
and carries with it a great responsibility.
We welcome showing you how that responsibility is being met for a job
and here is our President Lee right a link
and you're going to see life insurance company operates.
You'll know literally print tons of information every year.
Giving people facts about how this business is operated because we want them to
know of course our complete request to the state insurance department
and the supervisory officials our candidates are open to the public
but in addition we use annual reports booklets leaflets magazines
and radio advertising
and the Word of Mouth of Appeal representatives to explain our business.
So if you're going to see it
and since all of you probably own your own insurance policies. It's very much.
Your Business. So I think you'll be especially interested in seeing how it works.
I think you're right sir.
We are on our way from these three nerve center is the home office in New York the
head office in San Francisco
and they head office in Ottawa forty three thousand employees
and field men are serving metropolitan policy holders who number one in every five
set of The News of the United States and Canada the great
and the small from all walks of life every profession.
Every occupation.
Congressman Governor famous athlete lawyers
thousands of them forty thousand stevedores eighty thousand
bricklayers a quarter of a million teachers one hundred
fifteen thousand plumbers sixty five thousand doctors one
hundred
and seventy five thousand barbers a third of a million policyholders name Smith
sixteen thousand John Smith millions of children filmmakers
and millions of others how you wonders can we keep up with a family the size of
ours without a lot of confusion simple.
Of course each field man knows the facts about his policy goals then in
metropolitan the home of them there are something like ten miles of filing cabinet.
All you need to do is walk down the right road.
Not that the right file pull out the right drawer left out the right Boulder
and presto. There it is right at your fingertips the right number
but not just our code numbers in a code file.
These are the life stories of real people packed with drama sorrows happy in this
folder for instance portrays almost fifty years in the lives of a man
and his wife live today enjoying their well earned retired not a care in the world
except of course for each other.
Oh yes a flock of grandchildren
and yet another all the this time it's the widow mother of two children who
regularly receive the check because a thoughtful husband
and the Metropolitan agent arranged a life insurance program which provided wife
and children with a steady income
and here's another five another for a modest enjoyment
payment to a working man's family.
This will help provide their boys with the technical training his parents play with
the aid of the company when he was just a toddler.
Let's try one more phone
and one more member of the Metropolitan family who has metropolitan accident
and help in charge here are there more than here is Bill Turner their metropolitan
agent again both looking well thank you feeling very good except for their I was
sorry to hear that you're fluent. Oh I think it'll be alright.
Another week
or so swelling has gone down pretty well I think I'll be able to get my shoes here
something I know you've been waiting for. Thanks a lot for the check there.
It's not heading in the air.
Even when you're not bringing it something that you don't like
and I have often wondered how in the well you can give all of your policyholders
the same kind of attention if you give us.
But you might have taken it to other family to see.
I have about three hundred fifty families with my debit.
That's what we call the group of families assigned to one agency this part of town
is my particular debit and it's up to me to see
that each policy holder in this area gets the same services.
So he lives close enough to hear that chimes of the Metropolitan Tower in New York.
Every agent have a debit the same size as the one you covered D.C.
Metropolitan doesn't assign to any agency or policy holder families
and he can take care of the property sold in a big city where people live close
together. I doubt
that covers even a smaller area than Bill Turner had to look after maybe just a few
city blocks while in rural areas with families farther apart
and others may cover several square miles altogether Metropolitan has the United
States and Canada divided into about seventeen thousand and that means
that contains thousand agents to take care of those deputies usually about twenty
to twenty five deaths in one particular area are attached to what is called a
district there are about eight hundred districts in the United States
and Canada in the city of St Louis for example there are eleven regular testing
each year service center for the policyholders in its particular area.
Each district office is headed by a manager who is assisted on the average by three
assistant managers and the clerical staff all of whom work with the agency
and the home
and head office people in rendering necessary services to policyholders from
about forty to eighty districts in a particular state
or group of states make up an agency territory.
The United States and Canada are divided into fourteen but start.
It's directed by a superintendent of eighteen days who makes his headquarters in
the home office
or one of the head office an important responsibility of the superintendent of a TO
Ses is to see that honesty Holder is in his territory get competent service.
Well you certainly are organized to give good service be a call on all your policy
holders once a month just as you do on a letter many homes right call every month
or every leak because these families find it easier to pay their premiums the child
end of it all depends on the service
that we claim in this way all of us agents get well acquainted with our
policyholders we know their circumstances
and give them the kind of individual service that best to teach family.
I sometimes think you know more about me
and my family than I do I guess that's why you're able to help her so much.
Thank you.
That's the best compliment you could pay me the company's always figuring new ways
to get more benefits typology you see one reason for this efficient service is the
type of men who represent the company in the field carefully selected in terms of
weight training the Metropolitan agent of the career a man in his chosen profession
more than forty five hundred field men have been with the company twenty years
or longer for a total of over one hundred thousand years
and no matter how long they've been with the company these man never get through
study the first step for a new man is a thorough course of instruction in the
fundamentals of the best.
So you see the life insurance agents position has grown in stature one of the are
important responsibilities is to plan insurance to fit people's individual needs
for security to make that possible metropolitan right.
Seventy five different types. Policies.
Most of them from under the heading of ordinary
industrial
and prove the
circles show roughly about how much of each is in force then in addition
the company right. Accidental in health insurance.
This is the kind that protects against loss of income due to sickness
or injury will give us a definition of industrial insurance.
OK Pam. Well one thing about industrial insurance is
that it sold in small amounts under one thousand dollars it's intended for wage
earners or others who want small policies with premiums payable
that short interval weekly or monthly
and who usually find it more convenient to have an agent call up the home to
receive premiums right as little as five cents a week will buy an industrial policy
but the average weekly premium industrial policy comes for a premium of twenty five
or thirty cents a week our right.
Can you tell it's one of the main characteristics of ordinary insurance.
Well basically it's the same idea as industrial insurance.
Only ordinary policies are generally current least a thousand dollars in premiums
can't be paid off monthly in fact on most ordinary policies the premiums are paid
annually semiannually or quarterly corrects
and while metropolitan issues ordinary policies are as large as three hundred fifty
thousand dollars the average policy is about seventeen hundred dollars.
Now that's defined group insurance alright them group insurance is bought by
employers for the benefit of their employees both usually sharing in the.
It offers different kinds of protections clothing life accident health surgical
and hospitalization benefits
and retirement income the employer handles many of the clerical details signs the
group premiums in a lump sum to the insurance company.
And this helps to make group insurance low cost insurance you had anything of
that pretty well there's one thing in the case of the Metropolitan there must be at
least fifty insured employees in the group
and at least seventy five percent of all employees in a plan or concerned.
Must apply for the insurance some concerns have thousands even hundreds of
thousands of employees protected under metropolitan group program.
There's no medical examination.
It's that makes it possible for them to don't forget
that although the agent must know the life insurance business from a disease he
does more than just look after the insurance need to policyholders He also puts the
company's money services to work for their needed an available think our nursing
service for instance.
I'll never forget that men think they have to tell me the creeps.
When Tommy came down with pneumonia.
The doctor said the Metropolitan nurse helping save Thomas let's she recognized the
danger and reported every detail right away.
Yes I'm a member the way he taught me to take care. Tommy between events.
Yes that's the story we get from lots of policyholders all over the United States
and Canada it's why you'll find metropolitan nurses in over seventy seven hundred
cities and towns who gets that service. Everybody know it's G.P.
For those who carry metropolitans industrial
or group insurance nurses visit them
when they're sick at home under a doctor's care
and you know those nurses make nearly two million visits a year the wonderful
service our rights and those have put
that you've been leaving with this evidence because I fed policy.
They are a gold mine of information.
That's not a problem both sides on the high and overweight.
They have really at all. Yes I remember now.
God knows when you were a little worried about geology
and regarding all the books that the health
and welfare division with its staff of health
and safety specialist is constantly at work preparing authoritative
and up to date health information for policyholders for a third of a century now
the company has been distributing help Sam State Department at a rate of one every
second.
That's more than thirty million a year the company also publishes similar information
through magazine advertisement which have a total circulation of about three
hundred and seventy five million copies per year.
The policyholders benefit by such efforts to prevent disease
and extend the length of life for the decrease in Martella they affect the cost of
insurance premium and damage
and rates on life insurance policies both reflect a separate the story of how
premiums are determined goes to the very heart of the life insurance death premium
calculations are made by actuaries men killed in the science of life insurance
mathematics these engineers of the insurance business make your own
but the policyholders must pay to cover the cost of the benefits provided in their
policy with the help of records kept over many years they can tell you a very
closely. Not cool diet it year
but how many the premium on policyholder pays is based primarily on the normal
death rate for the insured group to which you belong.
For example suppose we start with one thousand youngsters at the age of ten.
And follow them down the years.
Life may begin at forty for some of them but it will end that for ninety one.
At the age of sixty three hundred and three.
They nothing so over the years while fewer and fewer premiums come in more
and more money must be paid out.
If premiums for each year were based soley on the death rate and that here.
They were growing larger and larger as the policyholder grows older.
Thanh who could afford these large premiums in the later years.
The way to protect you against that had a lot during the later years.
Is to even out the premiums. In this way during the early years.
They are known to more than is necessary to meet definitely.
And in later years
when the death rate is high less than is necessary because only a portion of the
early premiums is needed for death claims it is possible to build up a fund to take
care of the deficiency of premiums in later years this fund is invested throughout
the country to learn interest in fact for each dollar the company receives from
policyholders in premiums the company's investments bring in about twenty two cents.
You can see how this interest on the company's investment.
Reduces the premiums of policyholders right across the years.
Now we have seen two of the things actuaries have to think about in estimating the
cost of life insurance. The first is the death rate.
And the second is the interest rate.
The third item affecting premium rate is expense including taxes.
The cost of doing business. Naturally and that costs there is for example.
It's a lot more work to make weekly collections
and to receive a check from a policy holder who mailed fist premium direct to the
company one P.P.S..
Then of course there's rent and the expense of paper printing
and all the other necessary I. That was for servicing policy holders.
And that's the way the actuaries work out your premium payments.
Yes Bill but suppose the company I collect more in premiums than it needs.
What becomes of the money left over by only. Everything is figured conservatively.
And there's a safety margin for things like
that awful influenza epidemic back in one thousand nine hundred.
Just as a result of
that metropolitan played on industrial policies alone over one hundred thousand
deaths claims. I mean and it was terrible.
It's then if it turns out
that your insurance protection costs less than the actuaries allowed for it's the
savings go back to the policyholders in dividends.
So that man's We get our insurance protection at cost. Absolutely.
The actual cost of providing care. That's all right.
But tell me this money that the company is holding under thirty dollars
that invested.
We have a large staff of investments each an expert in his own fields the company
gets maximum safety for your friends by spreading investments in many different
fields sort of like putting lots of acres and lots of class gets you know
that we have tens of thousands of investment spread over the United States Canada.
You'd be interested in knowing
that some of the reserve on your policies may come right back to your own community
and one of our ads and money coming home to boost. I don't quite understand.
Well this is what we invest millions to the real estate market happens
that right here in our own community our homes stores for something
and life insurance dollars help to build money
that comes home to make our community a better place to live
and still other insurance dollars are sent out to work on farms invested in far
more use of the some farmers and raise better crops
and you combine maybe help fix up the blinds.
Life insurance dollars working just real utility
and transportation to help keep factories humming men
and jobs help bring goods to us and move away what we
and our neighbors have to sell to other markets in fact there's hardly a person in
the United States or in Canada who doesn't benefit by these investments.
Do you realize. Whenever you write on a train you're using a service
that your own life can change reserves help to turn the lights I knew the company
invested every day but I didn't realize
that these dollars came back so close to home they come even close to them
that for example every time you light the gas
or talk over the telephone
or flick a switch to read your evening papers
or listen to your radio your benefiting from the investment of these reserves
for example metropolitan alone has more than six hundred million dollars invested
in the bonds of telephone and utility companies
that serve nearly every section of the United States and Canada but chances are
that life insurance dollars had a part in producing your automobile
or we have tens of millions invested in the bonds of steel mills rubber works
chemical plants
and other industries the company has been leading the way in the construction of
great housing projects such as the for people of modest income at times
when housing is one of the country's greatest need this now proved to other
organizations
that providing a pleasant place to live for thousands of families at low rent is
just unsound financially as it is socially the nation benefits
and policyholders funds are safely invested to yield a fair return life insurance
played an important part in the.
Hoping to win the gold
after for harbor.
Practically all of the money metropolitan had available for investment went into
government from following the close of the war the company had almost four billions
in government security.
Listen return of priests reserve funds started going into peacetime enterprises
and get something to provide jobs.
Frankly Well I never thought of that money as partly ours
and never know those dollars were doing so much for the country start to make the
sentence Big Thunder around is definite That's right.
Of course the company's first job is to invest its money safely.
So that
when the time comes every policy can be paid on the dots the returns from these
investments.
And the money in the town of the holders pay as premiums make up the company's
total income and this is what happens to each dollar of
that income in an average year about fifteen cents including two cents for taxes if
used to cover the cost of rendering necessary service to policyholders the
remaining eighty five cents which is more than policyholders contributed to each
dollar of income is paid to or set aside for policyholders
and their beneficiaries that claims matured and almonds
and other cash payments make up about forty seven cents.
While the remaining thirty eight cents.
Yet set aside so the company can meet similar payments
that will fall due in the future.
Thus the company can keep its promise to pay as written in every policy.
You see your policy is more than just income paper it is a promise to pay just as a
dollar bill is a promise to pay
and these policies are just as good as the integrity of the reputation
and the a bill.
The of the Metropolitan to live up to its promise the Metropolitan made good its
promise way back in eight hundred sixty eight
when a foetus first the flame on the life of white leaves many years the record in
bold Spensieri a few months later the eighteenth the plain
and the amount of ten thousand dollars was paid on the life of the man who died
according to these records of congestion of the brain caused by free
and full of it you must remember
that this was before the days of the typewriter the telephone
and the transcontinental railroad through all these years.
The company has kept all its promises to pay millions and millions of them.
That is the record which stands behind the promise in every metropolitan holiday
today among the tons of daily mail received in the metropolitan will be some
fifteen or sixteen hundred yellow on them.
There is no need to open them in the mail room that yellow envelope tells us
that some member of the Metropolitan family has passed away and
that someone else is left behind faced with the immediate expenses
that it was the company
that sold the ammo on the most gets first call over all other incoming mail
unopened.
It is rushed to the proper department where without delay the claim is processed
for paying these debts planes plus in down one payment
and you it is like mess
and accident benefit come to more than one million six hundred thousand dollars a
day every member of the train division knows his responsibility in helping to
fulfill the company's promise to pay when
that train proofs are received at the Home Office attracted usually on its way with
them forty eight hours just the same and specially after floods hurricanes
and other that that district managers offer.
Pay claims direct be accomplished in normal times
and in emergency they mean that families can carry on with confidence
and with self-respect thousands of letters show
but this claim service means to beneficiaries.
For example a widow writes from Illinois your purpose in the absence of the
necessary name tape is appreciated.
Throughout the years your kind of different direct confident angry States serving
the Metropolitan family of thirty two million requires a staff of many thousands in
the home and head offices
and then the district offices throughout the United States on camera Metropolitan
has always been mindful even in the old days of the health
and well being of its employees funny those long skirts.
But gentlemen if you think that funny look at their own times of change.
This is the home office gym today.
Then there are modern facilities for a physical examination published kitchens
where wholesome food is prepared by modern
libraries a car with
a player which during the war undertake some service with their shoulder no one at
the canteen
or even a plan for retirement plans a complete insurance plan with cards shared by
company and employee.
Metropolitan practices what it speaks about insurance protection
and employees are encouraged to study in many kinds of classes for a session
for example. Almost all promotions come from within the company.
There you have seen some of the things
that make for any friction at the company are people not only the employees
but the policyholders to part again over the years the company has paid out about
millions of dollars to millions of families in the final analysis.
However the real measure of the Metropolitan's work lives in what it has
contributed to human welfare in part it has added to the sum total of human health
and happiness through greater security against the financial uncertainties of life
to appreciate that we must think of the millions of families come together
and save from one of them suffering.
We must think in terms of the many children who have grown up in good home under
the loving care of their parents many people living in my happy
and productive home they can measure the value of these blessings
with these examples of work we hope you will take away a better understanding of
the organization that backs up your insurance policy.
All of us in metropolitan home to one primary responsibility rendering service to
policyholders as a new company. We have no interest to say a single.