NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--New York Life, America’s largest1 mutual life insurer, reports how its approach to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) underscores its commitment to employees, agents, policy owners, and communities in its 2021 DE&I Report.
“As an organization that thinks long-term and elects to prepare for whatever the future may hold rather than try to predict it – we rely on our collective learnings and efforts as a whole to enable us to continue to proactively tackle the challenges of inequity and social justice. This is why in 2020, when long-standing racial injustices rose to the surface across our nation and COVID-19 disproportionately affected multicultural communities, we took immediate action but also knew we had to go beyond the short term,” said Ted Mathas, chairman and chief executive officer.
New York Life’s DE&I work is rooted in the company’s identity as a people-focused organization and furthers its mission to best serve diverse customers and communities. Key initiatives in 2020-21, building on the company’s ongoing commitment to social justice and racial equity, included:
- Forming a Social Justice Steering Committee and a Social Justice Working Group to take a more extensive and thoughtful review of what the company was doing and could do in the future to implement sustainable change that will positively impact communities for generations to come
- Celebrating our Office of Diversity & Inclusion’s 15th year which in 2021 evolved to the DE&I Center for Awareness and Advocacy
- Announcing a $1 billion impact investment initiative
- Committing to new DE&I leadership roles to advance DE&I initiatives within the workforce and our field of agents
- Furthering support for social justice in our communities through the New York Life Foundation
“As we move forward in 2022 and beyond, we are committed to driving change and progress with intention so that our DE&I efforts continue to evolve and grow, firmly ingrained in how we run our business and serve our clients and communities,” explained Craig DeSanto, president and CEO-elect.
The year 2020 brought a global pandemic, and the start of a national reckoning with systemic racism following the murder of George Floyd. From continuing to provide spaces for difficult but necessary conversations about race, to our Cultural and Target Markets agents providing support to customers in communities of color disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, New York Life worked to respond to the needs of employees, customers, and communities.
“DE&I at New York Life is not the work of one area, but a guiding principle that permeates what we do across the company,” said Kathleen Navarro, senior vice president and chief diversity officer.
The report highlights the evolution of DE&I at the company, its focus on target and cultural markets, impact investing, and community and foundation commitments. To understand more about New York Life’s DE&I efforts, visit New York Life's 2021 DE&I Report.
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, 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 agencies2.
1Based on revenue as reported by “Fortune 500 ranked within Industries, Insurance: Life, Health (Mutual),” Fortune magazine, 6/2/2021. For methodology, please see http://fortune.com/fortune500/.
2Individual independent rating agency commentary as of 9/30/2021: A.M. Best (A++), Fitch (AAA), Moody’s Investors Service (Aaa), Standard & Poor’s (AA+).
