Guardian Life Insurance Company of America
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Guardian Life Insurance Company of America | |
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| Type | Mutual |
| Founded | 1860 |
| Headquarters | New York, New York, USA |
| Key people | Dennis J. Manning, President and CEO |
| Industry | Insurance: Life & Health |
| Revenue | ▲$7.396 Billion USD (2005) |
| Net income | ▲$375 Million USD (2005) |
| Employees | 5,500 (2005) |
| Website | www.guardianlife.com |
The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America (GLICOA) was founded in 1860 in New York City. At the end of 2006, it was the fourth largest mutual life insurance company in the United States of America.
Mutual life insurance companies were originally organized to provide insurance-at-cost. Despite that fundamental fact, they have managed to accumulate massive profits over the years by overcharging policyowners for insurance and paying them too little in dividends.
At the beginning of the 21st century numerous mutuals such as Prudential, MetLife, and John Hancock decided to demutualize and return to policyowners all the profits earned over the years. Policyowners were awarded cash, stock and policy credits exceeding $100 billion in these demutualizations, which have been regarded as socially desirable.
Guardian Life is among the few remaining mutual life insurers that have not demutualized. As of December 31, 2006 it had accumulated about $4.0 billion in profits from its policyowners under the guise of mutuality and its board of directors has staunchly refused to return that money.
Guardian Life’s whole life policyowners would receive an estimated $18,826 per policy and its other policyowners would receive $869 per policy in a demutualization according to financial data contained in Guardian Life’s 2006 Annual Statement to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), the company’s 2006 Annual Report and shown at http://policyownersfordemutualization.blogspot.com.
