Family Portrait (1947)

[Music] 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 VES with an urge as unchanging as the elements from Ocean to Ocean millions and millions of people making better more secure lives for their families have dotted the land with homes farm buildings [Music] factories hotels apartment houses stately public edifices Office Buildings symbols of security for all of us if these buildings could talk what a story they could tell if only they could speak if only they could speak you say if that's an invitation I'll accept [Music] 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 policy holders 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 have had to grow to keep up with our growing family of policyholders and give them the service 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 24th 1868 won't you come in for a visit and get a brief picture of how a life insurance company operates here you are right through this door first let's stop in to see the man who has been serving Metropolitan policy holders longer than anyone else 60 odd years he started as a mailboy and worked up to become president and then chairman of the board Frederick H eer how do you do I hope you'll 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 business that not only benefits our policy holders and their families but also helps the community and the nation in a wide variety of ways serving 32 million in the United States and Canada is quite an undertaking and carries with it a great responsibility we welcome showing you how that responsibility is being met the place is yours and here's our president Leroy a Lincoln you're going to see how a life insurance company operates you know we 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 reports to the State Insurance departments and the supervisory officials of Canada are open to the public but in addition we use annual reports booklets leaflets magazines and radio advertising and the word of mouth of our field representatives to explain our business but 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 specially interested in seeing how it works I think you're writer we're on our way from these three nerve centers the home office in New York the head office in San Francisco and the head office in Ottawa 43,000 employees and field men are serving Metropolitan policy holders who number one in every five citizens of the United States and Canada the Great and the small from all walks of life every profession every occupation congressmen Governors famous athletes lawyers thousands of them 40,000 stors 880,000 Brick Layers a quar of a million teachers 15,000 plumbers 65,000 doctors 175,000 Barbers a third of a million policy holders named Smith 16,000 John Smiths millions of children Homemakers and millions of others how you wonder 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 holders then in metropolitan's home office there are something like 10 miles of filing [Music] cabinets all you need to do is walk down the right row stop at the right file pull out the right drawer lift out the right folder and Presto there it is right at your fingertips the right number but not just a cold number in a cold file these are the life stories of real people packed with drama Sorrows happiness this folder for instance portrays almost 50 years in the lives of a man and his wife who are today enjoying their well-earned retirement not a care in the world except of course for each other and oh yes a flock of grandchildren and yet another folder this time it's a widow mother of two children who regularly receives a check because a thoughtful husband and a metropolitan agent arranged a life insurance program which provided wife and children with a steady income and here's another file another folder a modest endowment payment to a working man's family this will help provide their boy with the Technical Training his parents planned with the aid of the company when he was just a toddler let's try one more folder and one more member of the Metropolitan family who has Metropolitan accident and health insurance here are the Morton and here's Bill Turner their Metropolitan agent you're both looking well thank you feeling pretty good EX except for this I was sorry to hear about your foot oh I think it'll be all right in another week or so swelling's gone down pretty well I think I'll be able to get my shoe on well here's something I know you've been waiting for oh thanks a lot for the Teck bill it's nice having you here even when you're not bringing us something or other you know George and I have often wondered how in the world you can give all of your policy holders the same kind of attention that you give us but you must have hundreds of other families to see haven't you I have about 350 families in my debit that's what we call the group of families assigned to One agent 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 service as though he lived close enough to hear the Chimes of the Metropolitan Tower in New York does every agent have a debit the same size as the one you cover no you see Metropolitan doesn't assign to any agent more policy holder families than he can take care of properly so in a big city where people live close together a debit covers even a smaller area than Bill Turner has to look after it may be just a few city blocks while in rural areas with families farther apart a debit May cover several square miles altogether Metropolitan has the United States and Canada divided into about 177,000 debits and that means 177,000 agents to take care of those deits usually about 20 to 25 debits in one particular area are attached to what is called a district office there are about 800 districts in the United States and Canada in the city of St Louis for example there are 11 regular districts each a service center for the policy holders in its particular area each district office is headed by a manager who is assisted on the average by three assistant managers and a clerical staff all of whom work with the agents and the home and head office people in rendering necessary services to policy holders from about 40 to 80 districts in a particular state or group of states make up an agency territory the United States and Canada are divided into 14 such territories each directed by a superintendent of agencies who makes his headquarters in the home office or one of the head offices an important responsibility of each superintendent of agencies is to see that policy holders in his territory get competent service Well you certainly are organized to give good service do you call on all your policy holders once a month just as you do on us well there are many homes where I call every month or every week the because these families find it easier to pay their premiums at Short intervals it all depends on the service that's required and this way all of us agents get well acquainted with our policy holders we know their circumstances and can give them the kind of individual service that best suits each family bill I sometimes think you know more about me and my family than I do I guess that's why you're able to help us so much well thank you that's the best compliment you could pay me the company's always figuring new ways to give more benefits to policy holders you see one reason for this efficient service is the type of men who represent the company in the field carefully selected intensively trained the Metropolitan agent is a career man in his chosen profession more than 4,500 field men have been with the company 20 years or longer for a total of over 100,000 years and no matter how long they've been with the company these men never get through studying the first step for new men is a thorough course of instruction in the fundamentals of the business so you see the life insurance agent's position has grown in stature one of your important responsibilities is to plan Insurance to fit people's individual needs for security to make that possible Metropolitan writes 75 different different types of policies most of them come under the headings of ordinary industrial and grp these circles show roughly about how much of each is in force then in addition the the company writes accident and health insurance this is the kind that protects against loss of income due to sickness or injury who'll give us a definition of industrial Insurance okay Tom well one thing about industrial insurance is that it's sold in small amounts under $1,000 it's intended for wage earners or others who want small policies with premiums payable at Short intervals weekly or monthly and who usually find it more convenient to have an agent call at the home to receive premiums right as little as 5 cents a week will buy an industrial policy but the average weekly premium industrial policy calls for a premium of 25 or 30 cents a week now Roy can you tell us what are the main characteristics of ordinary Insurance well basically it's the same idea as industrial insurance only ordinary policies are generally for at least $1,000 and premiums can't be be paid oftener than monthly in fact on most ordinary policies the premiums are paid annually semiannually or quarterly correct and while Metropolitan issues ordinary policies as large as $350,000 the average policy is about $1,700 now let's define Group Insurance all right SAM Group Insurance is bought by employers for the benefit of their employees both usually sharing in the cost it offers different kinds of protection including life accident in health Surgical and hospitalization benefits and retirement income the employer handles many of the clerical details sends the group premium in a lump sum to the insurance company and this helps make Group insurance lowcost insurance can you add anything to that Fred well there's one thing in the case of the Metropolitan there must be at least 50 insured employees in a group and at least 75% of all employees in a plant or concern must apply for the insurance some concerns have thousands even hundreds of thousands of employees protected under Metropolitan group programs there's no medical examination that makes it possible for then too don't forget that although the agent must know the life insurance business from A to Z he does more than just look after the insurance needs of policy holders he also puts the company's many services to work where they're needed and available take our nursing service for instance I'll never forget that nursing service Tommy received when Tommy came down with pneumonia the doctor said the Metropolitan nurse helped him save Tommy's life she recognized the danger and reported every detail right away yes and remember the way she taught me to take care of Tommy between her visits yes that's the story we get from lots of policy holders all over the United states in Canada while you'll find Metropolitan nurses in over 7,700 cities and towns who gets that service everybody no it's chiefly 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 2 million visits a year it's a wonderful service all right and those Health booklets you've been leaving with us ever since we took out our first policy they're a gold mine of information those Metropolitan booklets on the heart and on overweight they're really excellent oh yes I remember now you got those when you were a little worried about Georg here regarding those booklets the Health and Welfare division with its staff of health and safety Specialists is constantly at work preparing authoritative and upto-date health information for policy holders for a third of a century now the company has been Distributing health and safety booklets at the rate of one every second that's more than 30 million a year the company also publishes similar information through magazine advertisements which have a total circulation of about 375 million copies per year the policy holders benefit by such efforts to prevent disease and extend length of life for the decrease in mortality affects the cost of insurance premium and dividend rates on life insurance policies both reflect death rates the story of how premiums are determined goes to the very heart of the life insurance business premium calculations are made by actuaries men skilled in the science of life insurance mathematics these Engineers of the insurance business figure out what the policyholders must pay to cover the cost of the benefits provided in their policies with the help of Records kept over many years they can tell you very closely not who will die this year but how many the premium of policy holder pays is based primarily on the normal death rates for the insured group to which he belongs for example suppose we start with 1,000 youngsters at the age of 10 and follow them down the years life may begin at 40 for some of them but it will have ended for 91 at the age of 60 303 will be missing 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 solely on the death rate in that year they would grow larger and larger as the policy holder grows older then who could afford these large premiums in the later years the way to protect you against that heavy load during the later years is to even out the premium in this way during the early years they amount to more than is necessary to meet death claims 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 earn interest in fact for each dollar the company receives from policy holders in premiums the company's Investments bring in about 22 cents you can see how this interest on the company's Investments reduces the premiums of policy holders 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 the second is the interest rate the third item affecting premium rates is expense including taxes the cost of doing business naturally that cost varies for example it's a lot more work to make weekly collections than to receive a check from a policy holder who mails his premium direct to the company once each year then of course there's rent and the expense of paper Printing and all the other necessary items for servicing policy holders and uh that's the way the actuaries work out your premium payment yes bill but suppose the company collects more in premiums than it needs What Becomes of the money left over well everything is figured conservatively and uh there's a safety margin for things like that awful influenza epidemic back in 1919 just as a result of that Metropolitan paid on Industrial policies alone over 100,00 death claims I remember it was terrible then if it turns out that your insurance protection costs less than the actuaries allowed for the savings go back to the policy holders and dividends so that means we get our insurance protection at Cost absolutely the actual cost of providing it he that's all right but tell me this money that the company's holding in reserve how is that invested we have a large staff of investment men each an expert in his own field the company gets maximum safety for your funds by spreading investments in many different fields sort of like putting lots of eggs and lots of baskets do you know that we have tens of thousands of Investments spread over the United States and Canada you'd be interested in knowing that some of the reserve on your policies may come right back to your own Community as one of our ads says money coming home to boost I don't quite understand what well Mrs Morton we invest millions in City real estate mortgages it happens that right here in our own Community are homes stores Office Buildings that life insurance dollars help to build money that comes home to make our community a better place to live in still other insurance dollars are sent out to work on farms invested in farm mortgages helping some farmer to raise better crops buy a new combine maybe or help fix up his barn life insurance dollars are at work in industrial utility and transportation bonds they help keep factories humming and Men on jobs help bring Goods to us and move away what we and our neighbors have to sell to other markets in fact there is hardly a person in the United States or in Canada who doesn't benefit by these Investments do you realize whenever you ride on a train you're using a service that your own life insurance reserves help to provide I knew the company invested the reserves but I didn't realize that these dollars came back so close to home they come even closer than that for example every time you light the gas or talk over the telephone or flick a switch to read your evening paper or listen to your radio you're benefiting from the investment of these reserves for example Metropolitan alone has more more than $600 million invested in the bonds of telephone and utility companies that serve nearly every section of the United States and Canada the chances are that life insurance dollars had a part in producing your automobile for 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 these for people of modest incomes at times when housing is one of the country's greatest needs this has proved to other organizations that providing a pleasant place to live for thousands of families at low rent is just as sound 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 helping to win the war after Pearl Harbor practically all the money Metropolitan had available for investment went into government bonds following the close of the war the company had almost 4 billions in government securities with the return of Peace Reserve funds started going into peacetime Enterprises again helping to provide jobs frankly bill I never thought of that money as partly ours and never knew those dollars were doing so much for the country sort of makes us into big Bond holders doesn't it 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 dot the return from these Investments and the money that policy 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 15 cents including 2 cents for taxes is used to cover the cost of rendering necessary service to policy holders the remaining 85 cents which is more than policy holders contributed to each dollar of income is paid to or set aside for policy holders and their beneficiaries death claims matured endowments and other cash payments make up about 47 cents while the remaining 38 cents is 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 ink and 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 the reput ation and the ability of the Metropolitan to live up to its promises the Metropolitan made good its promise way back in 1868 when it paid its first death claim on the life of Dwight G Smith here's the record in bold spencerian a few months later the 18th death claim in the amount of $10,000 was paid on the life of a man who died according to these records of congestion of the brain caused by free and full living 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 policy today among the tons of Daily Mail received in the metropolitan will be some 15 or 1,600 yellow envelopes 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 always accompany death so the yellow envelope gets first call over all other incoming mail unopen it is rushed to the proper department where without delay the claim is processed for payment these death claims plus endowment payments annuities sickness and accident benefits come in all to more than $1,600,000 a day every member of the claim division knows his responsibility in helping to fulfill the company's promise to pay when death claim proofs are received at the home office a check is usually on its way within 48 hours to speed payments especially after floods hurricanes and other disasters district managers often pay claims Direct speed promptness in normal times and in emergencies mean that families can carry on with confidence and with self-respect thousands of letters show what this claim service means to beneficiaries for example a widow writes from Illinois your promptness and the absence of unnecessary red tape is appreciated throughout the years your conduct is in inspired our confidence and respect serving the Metropolitan family of 32 million requires a staff of many thousands in the home and head offices and in district offices throughout the United States and Canada 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's funny look at this how times have changed this is the home office gym [Music] today then there are modern facilities for physical examination spotless kitchens where wholesome food is [Music] prepared a modern Library a coral Society [Music] a GLE a Players Club which during the war entertained thousands of servicemen with their show known as the cers a plan for retirement and a complete insurance plan with costs shared by company and employees Metropolitan practices what it preaches about insurance protection and employees are encouraged to study in many kinds of classes for efficiency for advancement almost all promotions come from within the company there you have seen some of the things that make for an efficient and happy company of people not only the employees but the policy holders too are the gainers over the years the company has paid out about 12 billions of dollars to millions of families in the final analysis however the real measure of the metropolitan's work lies in what it has contributed to human welfare in what it has added to the sum total of human health and happiness through greater security against the financial uncertainties of life to app appreciate this we must think of the millions of families kept together and saved from want and suffering we must think in terms of the many children who have grown up healthy in good homes under the loving care of their parents of many people living on to a happy and productive old age who can measure the value of these blessings so with these glimpses of our work work we hope you will take away a better understanding of the organization that backs up your insurance policy all of us in Metropolitan hold to the one primary responsibility rendering service to policyholders as a mutual company we have no interest to serve but that of the policyholders [Music] oh [Music]