METLIFE INC
For the period ended Dec 31, 2023. Filed Feb 16, 2024.
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FY2023 · Filed Feb 16, 2024
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Segments and Corporate & Other
We offer a broad range of products and services aimed at serving the financial needs of our customers. We sell these products to corporations and other institutions (including local, state and federal governments) and their respective employees, as well as individuals.
We have built a leading position in the U.S. group insurance market through long-standing relationships with many of the largest employers in the U.S.
Our Group Benefits segment, based in the U.S., offers life insurance, dental, group short- and long-term disability, individual disability, accidental death and dismemberment (“AD&D”) insurance, vision, and accident & health insurance, as well as prepaid legal plans and pet insurance. We also sell administrative services-only (“ASO”) arrangements to some employers.
We distribute Group Benefits products and services through a sales force primarily comprised of MetLife employees that is segmented by the size of the target customer. Account executives sell either directly to corporate and other group customers or through an intermediary, such as a broker or consultant. Employers have been emphasizing voluntary products and, as a result, we have increased our focus on communicating and marketing to employees in order to further foster sales of those products.
We have entered into several operating joint ventures and other arrangements with third parties to expand opportunities to market and distribute Group Benefits products and services. We also sell Group Benefits products and services through sponsoring associations and affinity groups and provide life, dental, accident & health, and vision coverage to certain employees of the U.S. Government. We have longstanding relationships with these employees and continue to cultivate and expand them through additional product offerings.
Our Group Benefits segment quarterly claims experience may vary, as seasonal illnesses effect mortality and morbidity, and due to utilization rate fluctuation in our non-medical health businesses. Annual benefit renewal implementation, enrollment, and marketing costs normally elevate expenses for the Group Benefits segment in the fourth quarter.
| Major Products | |
|---|---|
| Term Life Insurance | A guaranteed benefit upon the death of the insured for a specified time period in return for the periodic payment of premiums. Premiums may be guaranteed at a level amount for the coverage period or may be non-level and non-guaranteed. Term contracts expire without value at the end of the coverage period when the insured party is still living. |
| Variable Life Insurance | Insurance coverage through a contract that gives the policyholder flexibility in investment choices and, depending on the product, in premium payments and coverage amounts, with certain guarantees. Premiums and account balances can be directed by the policyholder into a variety of separate account investment options or directed to the Company’s general account. In the separate account investment options, the policyholder bears the entire risk of the investment results. With some products, by maintaining certain premium level, policyholders may have the advantage of various guarantees that may protect the death benefit from adverse investment experience. |
| Universal Life Insurance | Insurance coverage on the same basis as variable life, except that premiums, and the resulting accumulated balances, are allocated only to the Company’s general account. With some products, by maintaining a certain premium level, policyholders may have the advantage of various guarantees that may protect the death benefit from adverse investment experience. |
| Dental | Insurance and ASO arrangements that assist employees, retirees and their families in maintaining oral health while reducing out-of-pocket expenses. |
| Disability | Insurance and ASO arrangements for groups and individuals to provide benefits for income replacement, payment of business overhead expenses or mortgage protection, in the event of the disability of the insured. |
| Accident & Health Insurance | Accident, critical illness or hospital indemnity coverage to the insured. |
| Vision | Insurance, ASO arrangements, and managed eye health and vision care solutions to assist employees, retirees and their families in maintaining vision health while reducing out-of-pocket expenses. Offered to commercial groups, individuals, health plans and government sponsored programs through a nationwide provider network, retail optical chains and online eyewear providers. |
Retirement and Income Solutions
Our RIS segment, based in the U.S., provides funding and financing solutions that help institutional customers mitigate and manage liabilities primarily associated with their employee benefit programs using a spectrum of life and annuity-based insurance and investment products.
We distribute RIS products and services through dedicated sales teams and relationship managers primarily comprised of MetLife employees. We may sell products directly to benefit plan sponsors and advisors or through brokers, consultants or other intermediaries. In addition, these sales professionals work with individual, group and global distribution areas to better reach and service customers, brokers, consultants and other intermediaries.
| Major Products | ||
|---|---|---|
| Stable Value Products | • General account guaranteed interest contracts (“GICs”) are designed to provide stable value investment options within tax-qualified defined contribution plans by offering a fixed maturity investment with a guarantee of liquidity at contract value for participant transactions. • Separate account GICs are available to defined contribution plan sponsors by offering market value returns on separate account investments with a general account guarantee that plan participants will always be able to transact in their accounts at contract value.•Synthetic GICs or “wraps” are contracts available only to the sponsor of a participant-directed defined contribution plan. The contract “wraps” a portfolio of investments owned by the plan to provide a guarantee that plan participants will always be able to transact in their accounts at contract value. Generally, a wrap contract means that participants will not experience negative returns. • Private floating rate funding agreements are generally privately-placed, unregistered investment contracts issued as general account obligations with interest credited based on a specified rate or agreed upon short-term benchmark rate. These agreements are used for money market funds, securities lending cash collateral portfolios and short-term investment funds. | |
| Annuities | Pension Risk Transfers | General account and separate account annuities are offered in connection with defined benefit pension plans which include single premium buyouts allowing for full or partial transfers of pension liabilities.• General account annuities include non-participating group contract benefits purchased for retired or active employees covered under terminating or ongoing pension plans. • Separate account annuities include both participating and non-participating group contract benefits. Participating contract benefits are purchased for retired, terminated, or active employees covered under active or terminated pension plans. The assets supporting the guaranteed benefits for each contract are held in a separate account, however, the Company fully guarantees all benefit payments. Non-participating contracts have economic features similar to our general account product, but offer the added protection of an insulated separate account. Under accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (“GAAP”), these annuity contracts are treated as general account products. |
| Institutional Income Annuities | General account contracts that are guaranteed payout annuities purchased for employees upon retirement or termination of employment. Contracts can be life or non-life contingent non-participating contracts which do not provide for any loan or cash surrender value and, with few exceptions, do not permit future considerations. | |
| Structured Settlements | Customized annuities designed to serve as an alternative to a lump sum payment in a lawsuit initiated because of personal injury, wrongful death, or a workers’ compensation claim or other claim for damages. Surrenders are generally not allowed, although commutations are permitted in certain circumstances. Guaranteed payments consist of life contingent annuities, term certain annuities and lump sums. | |
| Risk Solutions | Longevity Reinsurance Solutions | Longevity reinsurance is a risk mitigation solution for United Kingdom (“U.K.”) pension plan sponsors and U.K. insurance companies that write pension risk transfer business, converting uncertain future pension benefit obligations into a fixed stream of payments to MetLife over the duration of the contract as opposed to a lump sum at inception in typical pension risk transfer transactions. |
|---|---|---|
| Benefit Funding Solutions | Specialized life insurance products and funding agreements designed specifically to provide solutions for funding postretirement benefits and company-, bank- or trust-owned life insurance used to finance nonqualified benefit programs for executives. | |
| Capital Markets Investment Products | • Funding agreement-backed notes are offered in medium term note programs, under which funding agreements are issued to special-purpose trusts that issue marketable notes in U.S. dollars or foreign currencies. The proceeds of these note issuances are used to acquire funding agreements with matching interest and maturity payment terms from certain subsidiaries of MetLife, Inc. The notes are underwritten and marketed by major investment banks’ broker-dealer operations and are sold to institutional investors.• Funding agreement-backed commercial paper is issued by a special-purpose limited liability company which deposits the proceeds under a master funding agreement issued to it by Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (“MLIC”). The commercial paper is issued in U.S. dollars or foreign currencies, receives the same short-term credit rating as MLIC and is marketed by major investment banks’ broker-dealer operations. • Funding agreements are issued by certain of our insurance subsidiaries to the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York (“FHLBNY”) and to a subsidiary of the Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation. |
Asia
Our Asia operations are geographically diverse encompassing both developed and emerging markets. We operate in nine jurisdictions throughout Asia, with our largest operation in Japan. We market our products and services through a range of proprietary and third-party distribution channels.
In Japan, our face-to-face channels including both career and general agency, continue to be critical to our overall distribution strategy, catering to various needs of individual retail customers. Our competitive advantage in bancassurance is based on robust distribution relationships with Japan’s very large banks, trust banks and various regional banks. Outside of Japan, our distribution strategies vary by market and leverage a combination of career and general agencies, bancassurance and direct marketing. In select markets, we also use independent brokers for retail sales and our employee sales force to sell group products.
| Major Products | |
|---|---|
| Life Insurance | Whole and term life, endowments, universal and variable life, as well as group life products. |
| Accident & Health Insurance | Full range of accident & health products, including hospitalization, cancer, critical illness, disability, income protection and personal accident coverage. |
| Retirement and Savings | Fixed and variable annuities, as well as regular savings products. |
Our largest operations are in Mexico and Chile. We market our products and services through a multi-channel distribution strategy which varies by geographic region and stage of market development.
We have an exclusive and captive agency distribution network which sells a variety of individual life, accident & health, and pension products. Our direct marketing channel includes sponsors and telesales representatives selling mainly accident & health and individual life products directly to consumers. We also work with brokers and independent agents on sales of group and individual life, accident & health, group medical, dental and pension products, and worksite marketing. We also offer to government employees life and medical insurance, as well as retirement and savings, and other products.
| Major Products | |
|---|---|
| Life Insurance | Whole and term life, endowments, universal and variable life, as well as group life products. |
| Retirement and Savings | Fixed annuities and pension products. Fixed income annuities provide for asset distribution needs. Our savings-oriented pension products are primarily offered in Chile under a mandatory privatized social security system. |
| Accident & Health Insurance | Group and individual major medical, accidental, and supplemental health products, including AD&D, hospital indemnity, medical reimbursement, and medical coverage for serious medical conditions, as well as dental products. |
| Credit Insurance | Policies designed to fulfill certain loan obligations in the event of the policyholder’s death. |
EMEA
We operate across EMEA in both developed (Western Europe) and emerging (Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa) markets. Our largest operations are in the Gulf region, the U.K. and France. In more mature markets, we focus our strategy on our preferred market segments to play a “niche” role. We also have a strong market presence in emerging markets leveraging a multi-channel distribution strategy.
Our businesses in EMEA use captive and independent agency, independent brokerage, bancassurance, corporate solutions and direct-to-consumer distribution channels.
| Major Products | |
|---|---|
| Life Insurance | Traditional and non-traditional life insurance products, such as whole and term life, endowments and variable life products, as well as group term life programs in most markets. |
| Retirement and Savings | Fixed annuities and pension products, including group pension programs in select markets. |
| Accident & Health Insurance | Individual and group personal accident and supplemental health products, including AD&D, hospital indemnity, scheduled medical reimbursement plans, and coverage for serious medical conditions. In addition, we provide individual and group major medical coverage in select markets. |
| Credit Insurance | Policies designed to fulfill certain loan obligations in the event of the policyholder’s death. |
This segment consists of operations relating to products and businesses that we no longer actively market in the U.S. These include variable, universal, term and whole life insurance, variable, fixed and index-linked annuities, and long-term care insurance. It also includes an in-force block of assumed variable annuity guarantees from a third party. See Note 9 of the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements for information on a reinsurance transaction with subsidiaries of Global Atlantic Financial Group.
| Major Products | |
|---|---|
| Variable, Universal and Term Life Insurance | Similar to products offered by our Group Benefits segment, except that these products were historically marketed to individuals through various retail distribution channels. For a description of these products, see “— Group Benefits.” |
| Whole Life Insurance | A benefit upon the death of the insured in return for the periodic payment of a fixed premium over a predetermined period. Whole life insurance includes policies that provide a participation feature in the form of dividends. Policyholders may receive dividends in cash, or apply them to increase death benefits, increase cash values available upon surrender or reduce the premiums required to maintain the contract in-force. |
| Variable Annuities | Variable annuities provide for asset accumulation and asset distribution needs. Variable annuities allow the contractholder to allocate deposits into various investment options in a separate account, as determined by the contractholder. In certain variable annuity products, contractholders may also choose to allocate all or a portion of their account to the Company’s general account and are credited with interest at rates we determine, subject to specified minimums. Contractholders may also elect certain minimum death benefit and minimum living benefit guarantees for which additional fees are charged and where asset allocation restrictions may apply. |
| Fixed and Indexed-Linked Annuities | Fixed annuities provide for asset accumulation and asset distribution needs. Deposits made into deferred annuity contracts are allocated to the Company’s general account and are credited with interest at rates we determine, subject to specified minimums. Fixed income annuities provide a guaranteed monthly income for a specified period of years and/or for the life of the annuitant. Additionally, the Company has issued indexed-linked annuities which allow the contractholder to participate in returns from equity indices. |
| Long-term Care | Protection against the potentially high costs of long-term health care services. Generally pays benefits to insureds who need assistance with activities of daily living or have a cognitive impairment. |
Corporate & Other contains various start-up, developing and run-off businesses. Also included in Corporate & Other are: the excess capital, as well as certain charges and activities, not allocated to the segments (including external integration and disposition costs, internal resource costs for associates committed to acquisitions and dispositions and enterprise-wide strategic initiatives), interest expense related to the majority of the Company’s outstanding debt, expenses associated with certain legal proceedings and income tax audit issues, the elimination of intersegment amounts (which generally relate to investment expenses and intersegment loans bearing interest rates commensurate with related borrowings), and the Company’s investment management business (through which the Company provides public fixed income, private capital and real estate investment solutions to institutional investors worldwide).
The text of this filing, as the company filed it with the SEC, without its images or exhibits. This is not investment advice.