Formerly |
|
---|---|
Company type | Public company |
ISIN | US91529Y1064 |
Industry | Employee group benefits (disability, dental, life and critical illness insurance) |
Founded | 1848 |
Headquarters | Chattanooga, Tennessee, U.S. |
Key people | Rick McKenney, President and CEO Kevin Kabat, Chairman of the Board; Steve Zabel, CFO |
Revenue | US$11.991 billion (2022) |
US$19,32 billion (2022) | |
US$13,14 billion (2022) | |
Total assets | US$61,435 billion (2022) |
Total equity | US$9,198 billion (2022) |
Number of employees | 10,937 (2022) |
Website | unumgroup |
Footnotes /references [1] |
Unum Group is an American insurance company headquartered in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Founded as Union Mutual in 1848 and known as UnumProvident from 1999-2007. [2] The company is part of the Fortune 500. [3] Unum Group was created by the 1999 merger of Unum Corporation and The Provident Companies [2] and comprises four distinct businesses – Unum US, Unum UK, Unum Poland and Colonial Life. Its underwriting insurers include The Paul Revere Life Insurance Company and Provident Life and Accident Insurance Company. [4]
Unum is the top disability insurer in both the United States and United Kingdom [5] and also offers other insurance products including accident, critical illness and life insurance. [6] as well as workplace leave management and mental health. In 2022, Unum insured about 45 million individuals through group policies [7] and reported revenue of $11.991 billion. [1]
Union Mutual Life Insurance was incorporated in 1848 in Maine. [8] The company issued its first policy, which covered the life of founder and company president Elisha B. Pratt for $5000 (equivalent to $175,880in 2022), on October 1, 1849. [8] Union Mutual's principal office at the time was located in Boston, Massachusetts, where Pratt resided. [8] [9] Union Mutual remained headquartered in Boston until 1881, when the state of Maine passed a law that required the principal office and headquarters of all insurance companies incorporated by the state to be located within the state. [8] The company relocated to Portland, Maine. [8] [9]
In 1940, the company acquired most of Massachusetts Accident Company's health and accident insurance business. [9] The acquisition was Union Mutual's first expansion beyond individual life and endowment insurance. [9] [10] In 1969, Union Mutual established the insurance industry's first downstream holding company, which facilitated the company's continued expansion and diversification. [11] [12] Union Mutual also established its group disability business in the 1960s. [9] [10] Group disability would become the company's flagship product. [13] [14]
Union Mutual became the first major mutual insurance company to demutualize in 1986. [9] Company CEO Colin Hampton had been pushing for demutualization since 1970 and the company formally began the process of converting to a publicly held company in January 1985. [9] [15] Union Mutual, now renamed Unum, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in November 1986. [11]
The company also began selling off underperforming businesses during the 1980s. [9] From 1982 to 1990, Unum abandoned many insurance products, including medical insurance, individual life insurance, general investment contracts, and individual annuities and pensions. [9] Under the leadership of then-CEO James Orr, the company turned its focus to long-term group disability insurance. [9]
In March 1990, Unum acquired National Employers Life Assurance Holdings, which at the time was the United Kingdom's largest disability insurer. [16] The company later acquired Duncanson & Holt, a reinsurer and insurance underwriter for the accident and health insurance sectors. [17] In 1993, Unum acquired the Colonial Companies, parent company of Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company. [18] Colonial focused on individual insurance products, including accident, cancer and life insurance policies. [18] Unum began offering individual disability policies under the Unum brand once again in 1995. [9]
The Provident companies was founded in Chattanooga, Tennessee in May 1887 as Mutual Medical Aid and Accident Insurance Company. The company originally specialized in providing both medical-aid and accident insurance to employees in high-risk industries, including miners and coal workers. [19] Within a few months, the company’s founders became concerned that a single disease epidemic would bankrupt the company. Mutual Medical Aid and Accident purchased back all outstanding medical-aid policies and reincorporated as Provident Accident Insurance Company. Provident only issued accident policies.
In 1892, Thomas Maclellan and John McMaster purchased a 50% stake in the company for $1000. The two men purchased the remaining 50% equity in 1895 and Maclellan was the company's sole owner and president by 1900. [19] Maclellan reorganized the company from being mutually held to a stock company in 1910.
Thomas Maclellan served as president of Provident until he was struck by an automobile and unexpectedly died 1916. [20] Robert Jardine Maclellan, the son of Thomas and Helen Maclellan, and the maternal grandson of railroad promoter Robert Jardine, assumed the presidency of Provident following his father's death. [20] [21] Provident began selling life insurance the following year, in 1917, and the first life insurance policy issued by the company covered Robert Maclellan's life. [21] The company also began offering railroad insurance. [21]
Provident wrote its first group policy in 1924. The company expanded its operations with its 1926 acquisition of Detroit, Michigan-based Standard Accident Company. Provident operated in 34 states by 1928. It also acquired Southern Surety Company in 1931 and Meridian Insurance of West Virginia in 1938. [21] The company expanded into Canada in 1948. [21]
In November 1993, J. Harold Chandler became president and chief executive officer of Provident. [22] Chandler had previously served as a senior executive at NationsBank. [22] Chandler initiated a company-wide restructuring at Provident, which included the 1995 sale of its health-related business to Healthsource for $231 million. [23] Provident also increased its focus on individual disability and life policies with the 1997 acquisition of the Paul Revere Corporation, a Worcester, Massachusetts-based provider of individual disability insurance, from Textron for $1.2 billion. [24] The purchase of Paul Revere made Provident the nation's largest provider of individual disability policies. [24]
Unum and Provident of Chattanooga, Tennessee announced their intention to merge in November 1998. [13] When the merger was completed in 1999, the new company, named UnumProvident, was the United States' largest disability insurance provider. [25] Then-Unum chairman and chief executive James Orr was retained in as chairman and CEO of UnumProvident, which was headquartered in Portland, Maine. [25]
Company Chief Operating Officer J. Harold Chandler, who had served as Provident's chief executive prior to the merger, succeeded Orr as UnumProvident CEO in November 1999. [26] The company sold Provident National Assurance, a holding company for its life insurance and variable annuity business, to Allstate in 2001. [27] In 2002, UnumProvident relocated its headquarters from Portland, Maine to Chattanooga, Tennessee. [28] The former Provident Companies was headquartered in Chattanooga. [28]
Unum received negative attention in 2002, when California regulators fined Unum, and alleged that the company inappropriately denied long-term disability insurance claims. [29] Unum stated that "only 2% of the policyholders who filed a claim with the company last year [2001] were found not to be disabled, an amount consistent with prior experience." [30]
UnumProvident acquired Sun Life Financial's United Kingdom-based group insurance business in 2003. [31] Thomas Watjen replaced Orr as UnumProvident’s chief executive later that year. [32] The company also sold its Japanese and Argentine businesses. [31]
In 2004, Unum entered into a regulatory settlement agreement (RSA) with insurance regulators in over 40 states. [33] The settlement related to Unum's handling of disability claims and required the company "to make significant changes in corporate governance, implement revisions to claim procedures and provide for a full re-examination of both reassessed claims and disability insurance claim decisions after the January 2005 effective date of the RSA." [34] The review was completed in 2008, and resulted in a 41.7% reversal, "in whole or part", and an additional $676.2 million of benefits paid nationwide by Unum. [35] The state of Maine press release announcing the result, praised regulators for their work, and the company for coming into compliance. [35] The company was involved with the UK's controversial Welfare Reform Bill in 2007 and was investigated by the BBC in England at that time. [36] [37] [38]
In 2007, UnumProvident was renamed Unum. [39] The Unum moniker was last used by the Unum Corporation prior to the 1999 merger. [39] In 2012 and 2013, Unum partnered with the Consumer Federation of America to release reports which examined the use of disability insurance by American workers. [40] [41] According to numbers released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that were cited by the report, two-thirds of American workers do not carry disability insurance policies. [42] In addition, the report found that, among other things, workers know little about disability insurance, despite expecting financial hardship if they were to become unable to work. [40] [41]
In 2008 Unum opened its IT centre of excellence in Carlow, Republic of Ireland, [43] and continued to digitize its finance operations, [44] and to invest in technology, in the U.S. [45] and abroad [46] during the following decades. [47]
Richard McKenney has led Unum as its CEO since April 1, 2015. [32] Unum UK entered the dental insurance market with acquisitions of National Dental Plan, then Starmount Life, in 2015 and 2016, respectively. [25] As of December 2016, Unum had 9,400 full-time employees and annual revenues of $11.047 billion. [48]
From 2019, Unum Group has been named annually among The Civic 50 by Points of Light. [49]
In 2022, Unum Group provided coverage to about 45 million people with 10,937 employees, [7] and reported revenue of $11.991 billion. [1]
In 2023, subsidiary Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company launched Gathr, a proprietary HR tech and benefits administration platform for small businesses. [50]
Unum Group is headquartered in Chattanooga, Tennessee, [4] and maintains offices in Portland, Maine; Columbia, South Carolina; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Atlanta, Georgia; Milton Court, Dorking, Surrey, Basingstoke and Hampshire, England, Warsaw, Poland and Carlow, County Carlow, Ireland. [4] Thomas Watjen served as Unum Group president and chief executive from 2003 until his retirement in 2015. Watjen became Chairman of the Unum Group Board of Directors on May 21, 2015. He was succeeded as President and CEO by Richard McKenny.
Unum is divided into five business segments: Unum US, Unum UK, Unum Ireland, Unum Poland and Colonial Life. [4] It is one of the world’s largest providers of employee benefits as group disability insurance, as well as group benefits, life insurance and other services. [6] [51]
During the 2010s, Unum collaborated with Oxford Economics,among others, to analyze staff engagement and retention, subsequently designing policies and adding benefits to nurture company loyalty. [52] [53] It continually develops policies and programs that target inclusivity, [54] [55] compliance security. [56] and environmental sustainability. [56] [57]
The company is a long-time participant of the Maine Heart Walk, with COO Mike Simonds serving as the event’s chairman in 2021. [58] Unum Group has been named annually to several Forbes’ lists, including America’s Best Largest Employers and America’s Best Employers for Diversity, [6] and, since 2021, among Ethisphere’s World’s Most Ethical Companies. [56]
Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to protect against the risk of a contingent or uncertain loss.
Friends' Provident Insurance was a banking institution founded in 1832 to serve the needs of the Society of Friends (Quakers). Based in Bradford, Yorkshire, it concentrated on sickness and annuity policies until its life fund acquired Century Insurance in 1918, expanding into general insurance. The restriction to Quaker membership was an increasing constraint but the ties were substantially reduced by the Friends' Provident Institution Act 1915. Although Century's branch network enabled FPI to expand, the periodic underwriting losses strained the life fund's capital base and Century was sold in 1975. In the year 2000, Friends Provident demutualised and listed on the FT100 Index. After abortive takeover negotiations, Friends accepted a takeover bid from Resolution Limited in 2009.
MetLife, Inc. is the holding corporation for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MLIC), better known as MetLife, and its affiliates. MetLife is among the largest global providers of insurance, annuities, and employee benefit programs, with 90 million customers in over 60 countries. The firm was founded on March 24, 1868. MetLife ranked No. 43 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.
Zurich Insurance Group Ltd is a Swiss insurance company, headquartered in Zürich, and the country's largest insurer. As of 2021, the group is the world's 112th largest public company according to Forbes' Global 2000s list, and in 2011, it ranked 94th in Interbrand's top 100 brands.
American Family Insurance, also abbreviated as AmFam, is an American private mutual company that focuses on property, casualty, and auto insurance, and also offers commercial insurance, life, health, and homeowners coverage as well as investment and retirement-planning products. It is a Fortune 500 company and its revenues were over $9.5 billion in 2017.
Cindy Ossias is an American lawyer. In the early months of the year 2000, while serving as a long-time senior lawyer for the California Department of Insurance (CDI), Ossias leaked confidential documents exposing the allegedly illegal and corrupt activities of Chuck Quackenbush, then Insurance Commissioner of California and head of CDI, to the state legislative consultant investigating the Commissioner's actions. In 2004, Ossias also took a seat as Director for California government watchdog group Californians Aware.
New York Life Insurance Company (NYLIC) is the third-largest life insurance company and the largest mutual life insurance company in the United States, and is ranked #71 on the 2023 Fortune 500 list of the largest U.S. corporations by total revenue. In 2023, NYLIC achieved the best possible ratings by the four independent rating companies. Other New York Life affiliates provide an array of securities products and services, as well as institutional and retail mutual funds.
Assurant, Inc. is a global provider of risk management products and services with headquarters in Atlanta. Its businesses provide a diverse set of specialty, niche-market insurance products in the property, casualty, extended device protection, and preneed insurance sectors. The company's main operating segments are Global Housing and Global Lifestyle.
Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company is an American insurance company based in Columbia, South Carolina. Colonial Life offers disability, accident, life, cancer, critical illness and hospital confinement insurance plans in 49 states. Colonial Life was founded in 1939 by Edwin Averyt and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Unum in 1993.
Liverpool Victoria, trading since May 2007 as LV=, is one of the United Kingdom's largest insurance companies. It offers a range of insurance and retirement products.
Co-op Insurance is the trading name of CIS General Insurance, a general insurance company, which is part of the Co-operative Group, based in Manchester, United Kingdom. Co-op Insurance Services, an insurance intermediary incorporated in 2017, is a wholly owned subsidiary of CIS General Insurance.
The Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society Limited, later Colonial Limited, and commonly known as Colonial Mutual, Colonial Mutual Life, and/or CML, was a diverse international financial services company headquartered in Melbourne, Australia. Colonial's core businesses were life and general insurance, retirement savings, banking and funds management. The company operated in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the Fiji Islands for more than a century.
Elevance Health, Inc. is an American health insurance provider. Prior to June 2022, Elevance Health was named Anthem, Inc. The company's services include medical, pharmaceutical, dental, behavioral health, long-term care, and disability plans through affiliated companies such as Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Anthem Blue Cross in California, Wellpoint, and Carelon. It is the largest for-profit managed health care company in the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. As of 2022, the company had 46.8 million members within its affiliated companies' health plans.
The Royal London Mutual Insurance Society Limited, along with its subsidiaries, is the largest mutual insurer in the United Kingdom, with Group funds under management of over £150 billion. Group businesses provide around nine million policies and employ 4046 people, as of June 2019.
Robert Jardine was a Scottish-Canadian businessman and railroad promoter in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.
The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) is a statutory body under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Finance, Government of India and is tasked with regulating and licensing the insurance and re-insurance industries in India. It was constituted by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority Act, 1999, an Act of Parliament passed by the Government of India. The agency's headquarters are in Hyderabad, Telangana, where it moved from Delhi in 2001.
Hangarter v. Provident Insurance Company, 373 F.3d 998, , is a landmark decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on the issue of disability bad faith insurance law. Because California’s bad faith insurance law is often referred to in many states as a model nationwide, the 9th Circuit’s decision has a persuasive impact throughout the country.
Reliance Partners is an insurance agency offering commercial insurance products for the transportation and logistics industry. The private equity-backed company is based in Chattanooga, Tennessee with 8 additional office locations throughout the United States.
Rick McKenney is an American businessman. He is currently known as the CEO of the insurance company Unum. Previously the Unum chief financial officer since 2009, in April 2015 he became CEO and president. Before Unum, he was CFO for Sun Life Financial and Genworth Financial. In 2016, he was on the Wall Street Journal CEO Council.