MassMutual history

A former lawyer, state legislator, and county sheriff before coming to MassMutual, Rice was elected the first mayor of Springfield in 1852.

By the time MassMutual was established, 9,000 miles (14,000 km) of functioning railroad lines had been built, giving MassMutual the opportunity to establish agencies in New York City, Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit by 1855.

Edgerly had joined MassMutual in 1859 and spent his entire career with the company.

Another effort that contributed to the increased selling of life insurance policies was the passing of a non-forfeiture law by the Massachusetts legislature in 1861.

Sales reached $200 million by 1862, then tripled to just under $600 million by the end of the Civil War.

After the company began operations and built sufficient reserves to meet regulatory requirements, the 31 stockholders were paid back in 1867, the stock was retired, and MassMutual functioned as a mutual company.

1868: The company expands and establishes its first office on the West Coast.

Caleb Rice's presidency of MassMutual came to an end in 1873 when he was succeeded by E.W. Bond, who held the position for 13 years.

In 1885, MassMutual bought its first typewriter.

In 1886, Colonel Martin Van Buren Edgerly was named president.

Edgerly in March 1895 and helped MassMutual's assets exceed $50,000,000.

In 1901, MassMutual began to offer policies whose proceeds would be paid over a fixed period or for life, compared to policies that were only payable in lump sums at death or maturity.

After some investigations, they were outlawed by New York state, home to the primary insurance companies dealing in them, in 1906.

As the Armstrong Investigation settled, all MassMutual policies issued after October 1, 1907 earned value according to the American Experience Table of Mortality and 3% interest.

Despite the adverse effects of the influenza epidemic in 1918, MassMutual maintained steady growth.

The company employed 400 home office employees as the amount of insurance in force passed $1 billion in 1924.

However, MassMutual began to feel the direct effects of the stock market crash in 1929.

MassMutual introduced its first family-income policy in 1930.

So pervasive were policy terminations that the company's insurance in force on July 1, 1932 was less than it had been at the beginning of the year.

On March 11, 1936, it started raining … and didn’t stop for two weeks.

Seven years later, the firm issued its first substandard risk product, and in 1938 the first pension trust policy was issued.

When Alexander MacLean assumed the presidency in 1945, he became the first actuary to take the reins of the company.

In 1946, MassMutual first entered the growing group business, offering group policies and managing group pensions.

By 1950, the group department had grown exponentially, employing 200 people in the home office and in the field.

1 Richard Hooker, “A Century of Service: The Massachusetts Mutual Story,” Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., 1951.

MassMutual began to offer flextime for employees in 1968.

In 1969, assets topped $4 billion.

In 1974, MassMutual became the first major life insurance company to institute flextime.

MassMutual bought the Chrysler Building in a foreclosure proceeding in 1975.

When it sold the building in 1979, 96 percent of its space had found tenants.3

William Clark, who had taken over as president in 1980, saw that it was time to shift gears, and in the next seven years MassMutual introduced several new products and changed investment policies.

In 1981, when insurance in force grew by an average of 16 percent for the top 50 insurance firms, MassMutual's insurance in force rose only 9.9 percent.

By 1984, the group-pension division's assets had reached $5 billion, making MassMutual one of the biggest managers in the country.

In 1985, assets stood at $15.7 billion.

1995: MassMutual announces its merger with Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Co.

In 1998, MassMutual posted a record net income with 37% net income over the previous year – $359.2 million.

Chairman and CEO Robert O'Connell commented on the company's direction in a November 1999 South Florida Business Journal article, claiming that "you have to continue to offer new products and services and find new ways to grow your customer base, or you tend to wither away.

Back in the United States, MassMutual Trust Company was created in 2000, offering investment services and estate planning, in Hartford, Connecticut.

Despite the loss of MassMutual's subsidiary OppenheimerFunds' New York offices on September 11, 2001, the subsidiary recovered well, posting strong results along with its parent company for the year.

MassMutual's profit in 2005 rose from $753 million to $810 million.

4 Kent McKeever, “A Short History of Tontines,” Fordham Journal of Corporate and Financial Law, 2009.

Under CEO and President Roger Crandall, MassMutual whole life insurance sales rose 28% during the first six months of 2010.

Haven Life Insurance Agency, LLC was created as a subsidiary of MassMutual in 2015 with offices in New York.

In July 2020, Canadian-owned, Denver-based Empower Retirement announced it would be purchasing MassMutual's retirement plan business for $4.4 billion plus a contingency payout.

©2021 Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual®), Springfield, MA 01111-0001.