This success was in large part due to the company ’s most innovative contribution to the young industry, the use of agents to sell policies. Outbreaks of cholera and yellow fever often threatened the company ’s security, and temporarily forced it to restrict new business to Manhattan and Brooklyn in 1849.ĭespite such natural threats, the company grew quickly and established an adequate reserve for paying out dividends and benefits to policyholders. Epidemic diseases were of great concern to the company in its early years. Before 1850 the company considered overland travel to California too dangerous for policyholders to undertake without paying an extra premium. Southerners applying for policies faced higher premiums and restrictions on their travel as well. Policyholders in the 1840s could not travel south of Virginia and Kentucky during the summer because the company considered the southern climate a health risk. Policies issued by the company were usually limited to short periods of time and placed a variety of restrictions on their owners. The company ’s early operations coincided with the development of U.S. In 1917 or 1918 the company dropped the hyphen in its name. By 1849 the company was so securely established in this new business that it petitioned the state legislature and had its name changed to New-York Life Insurance Company.

The company began issuing policies in April 1845 and soon decided to jettison its fire and marine business in order to concentrate on life insurance. New York Life has its origins in a charter granted by the New York state legislature to Nautilus Insurance Company in 1841, for the sale of fire and marine insurance. Such legislation recognized the use of life insurance in a developing industrial economy and widened its potential market beyond wealthy speculators. In 1840 New York State passed a law allowing a married woman to insure her husband ’s life with immunity from having the benefits seized by his creditors. Marine and fire insurance were important, but people hesitated to assign a cash value to human life, and often associated life insurance with gambling.Īs the economy became more industrial and the population more mobile, society recognized the need to secure a family ’s welfare against the loss of a breadwinner. Life insurance was an infant industry when New York Life ’s predecessor, Nautilus Insurance Company, began operations in the 1840s. Since World War II New York Life has maintained its competitive edge by diversification. The company prospered during its first 100 years of operations, as the growth of the nation ’s population and economy created an expanding market for life insurance. As a mutual company, New York Life is owned solely by its policyholders, to whom it pays annual dividends and provides long-term coverage on a wide range of insurance products. Ranked as a Fortune 100 company, New York Life has provided its policyholders with financial security and investment opportunities since 1841. New York Life Insurance Company is one of the largest insurance companies in the United States and the world. Mutual Company Incorporated: 1841 as Nautilus Insurance Company Employees: 11,800 Total Assets: $97.1 billion (2000) NAIC: 524113 Direct Life Insurance Carriers 51 Madison Avenue New York, New York 10010 U.S.A.

New york life insurance policy