NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--New York Life, America’s largest1 mutual life insurer, has declared a dividend of $2.5 billion payable to eligible participating policy owners in 2025, the highest payout in its nearly 180-year history. In addition to whole life insurance policies, this includes the ninth consecutive year paying dividends on participating Mutual Income Annuities and the fifth consecutive year paying dividends on NYL My Care, a long-term care insurance product.2
While New York Life’s 171-consecutive-year history of paying dividends is the longest among the major mutual life insurers, the company’s approach to creating value for its millions of policy owners is anything but traditional. “We look far beyond dividends to deliver on our mission and to share our success,” said Chair, President & CEO Craig DeSanto. “We manage every aspect of our dynamic Fortune 100 company with one goal: Creating enduring value for our participating policy owners.”
This includes:
- Developing the best agents and advisors in the industry. “Our industry-leading,3 highly trained agents and advisors take a planning approach that enables our clients to both protect what matters most and prosper over the long term,” said DeSanto. Through an exclusive partnership with The American College of Financial Services, New York Life supports its field force in gaining specialized knowledge and earning respected designations in key areas such as retirement planning, wealth advisory, estate planning, and business planning.
- Building a diversified portfolio of profitable, high-growth Strategic Businesses. These include leading positions in global investment management with $818.6 billion in total assets under management,4 group benefit solutions, institutionally owned life insurance and annuities, direct-to-consumer sales of life insurance and other solutions to affinity group members, and Latin America’s largest agent-sold life insurance business. “We use the earnings generated by our Strategic Businesses to not only meaningfully support the dividends we pay each year, but also to add to our financial strength,” said DeSanto. “The Strategic Businesses help fulfill our mission, provide diversification, and accelerate innovation as well.”
- Offering a broad and innovative suite of products and solutions. To enable New York Life’s agents and advisors to help clients achieve all their financial goals, the company offers a wide range of life, long-term care, and disability insurance solutions, one of the industry’s most diverse sets of annuity products, and a broad array of wealth management solutions.
- Leaning into Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other rapidly developing tech advancements. “New York Life is committed to leaning into evolving technology trends and to becoming increasingly agile and innovative, so we can meet the growing needs of our clients, agents, and advisors,” said DeSanto. “This includes leveraging technology, data, and AI to deliver exceptional experiences.”
- Maintaining industry leading financial strength. With the highest financial-strength ratings currently awarded to any U.S. life insurer by all four major rating agencies,5 New York Life maintains a robust surplus and asset valuation reserve of $33.1 billion.6 The company’s strong financial position was also reflected in its record financial results for 2023 announced earlier this year. This included $3.1 billion in operating earnings,7 $16.7 billion in policy owner benefits and dividends paid,8 and $1.2 trillion in individual life insurance in force in the U.S.9
Since 1990, New York Life has paid in excess of $1 billion in total dividends every year and a total dividend payout of more than $50 billion over that time.
ABOUT NEW YORK LIFE
New York Life Insurance Company (www.newyorklife.com), a Fortune 100 company founded in 1845, is the largest1 mutual life insurance company in the United States and one of the largest life insurers in the world. Headquartered in New York City, New York Life’s family of companies offers life insurance, disability income insurance, retirement income, investments, and long-term care insurance. New York Life has the highest financial strength ratings currently awarded to any U.S. life insurer from all four of the major credit rating agencies.5
1Based on revenue as reported by “Fortune 500 ranked within Industries, Insurance: Life, Health (Mutual),” Fortune magazine, 6/4/2024. For methodology, please see http://fortune.com/fortune500/.
2Annuity and NYL My Care premiums are invested in portfolios that are separate and distinct from the life insurance portfolio and have their own dividend scales. Dividends are not guaranteed. The dividends paid on NYL My Care are applied to the premium to reduce out-of-pocket costs.
3New York Life has led U.S. membership in the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT), the Premier Association of Financial Professionals®, for 69 consecutive years. The 2024 MDRT membership list is as of 7/31/24.
4Assets under management consist of cash and invested assets and separate account assets of the company’s domestic and international insurance operations, and assets the company manages for third-party investors, including mutual funds, separately managed accounts, retirement plans and assets under administration. As of Sept. 30, 2024, New York Life’s assets under management total $818.6 billion.
5Individual independent rating agency commentary as of 10/4/2024: A.M. Best (A++), Fitch (AAA), Moody’s Investors Service (Aaa), Standard & Poor’s (AA+).
6Surplus and general account as of 9/30/2024. Please see New York Life’s 2023 Report to Policy Owners for additional information.
7Operating earnings is the measure used for management purposes to track the company’s results from ongoing operations and the underlying profitability of the business. This figure is based on Statutory Accounting principles on insurance operations with certain adjustments we believe are more appropriate as a measurement approach. The New York State Department of Financial Services recognizes only unadjusted statutory accounting practices for determining and reporting the financial condition and results of operations of an insurance company, for determining its solvency under the New York Insurance Law, and for determining whether its financial condition warrants the payment of a dividend to its policy owners.
Policy owners can view a detailed reconciliation of our management performance measure by visiting our website, www.newyorklife.com.
8Policy owner benefits primarily include death claims paid to beneficiaries and annuity payments. Dividends are payments made to eligible policy owners from divisible surplus. Divisible surplus is the portion of the company’s total surplus that is available, following each year’s operations, for distribution in the form of dividends. Dividends are not guaranteed. Each year the board of directors’ votes on the amount and allocation of the divisible surplus. Policy owner benefits and dividends reflect the consolidated results of NYLIC and its domestic insurance subsidiaries. Intercompany transactions have been eliminated in consolidation. NYLIC’s policy owner benefits and dividends were $8.73 billion and $8.70 billion for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. NYLIAC’s policy owner benefits were $5.94 billion and $5.78 billion for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. LINA’s policy owner benefits were $1.91 and $1.87 billion for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively.
9Individual life insurance in force is the total face amount of individual life insurance contracts (term, whole and universal life) outstanding for NYLIC and its domestic insurance subsidiaries at a given time. The company’s individual life insurance in force totaled $1,200.95 billion at December 31, 2023 (including $182.34 billion for NYLIAC).
