Business & Finance: Life Insurance

The annual statements of the leading life insurance companies reveal an unusual expansion during 1923. Metropolitan Life, the largest, wrote $2,359,034,859 of insurance—more than ever written in a single year by any company. Of this huge total, $1,066,984,741 was in larger policies, $912,366,542 in industrial and $379,683,576 in group insurance. Total insurance in Metropolitan’s books now amounts to $9,238,254,068. As of Dec. 31, 1923, the company’s assets totaled $1,431,399,418.

The Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, which is the oldest legal reserve life insurance company in America, reported 1923 as the greatest year in its 81 years of existence. On its books at the close of last year was $2,817,761,195 of insurance; while its assets amounted to $695,748,508.

The prosperity of the life insurance companies is due to several causes. Higher wages scales have augmented the number of individual policy holders and increased the amounts of life insurance carried by them. Also, the group insurance idea has proved popular; last year the Southern Pacific Railroad at one stroke insured 80,000 employees.

The investments made by the large insurance companies have also been an important business factor during the past year. The New York Life Insurance Co., the second largest American company, held bonds valued at $572,873,000 and mortgages for $255,000,000. The Metropolitan has also made extensive housing loans during the last two years.