Aetna Life Insurance Company; Its First Hundred Years: A History

Hartford, CT: Aetna Life Insurance Company, 1956. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Very good. xvi, 259. [5] pages. Color fold-out frontis. Illustrated endpapers. Illustrations. Appendix. Index. Pencil erasure residue on fep. Aetna Insurance Company organized an annuity fund to sell life insurance in 1850. In 1853, the Annuity department separates from Aetna Insurance and is incorporated as Aetna Life Insurance Company. The company's first president is Eliphalet A. Bulkeley. The "Aetna" name is retained to take advantage of the good reputation of the original Aetna. In 1861, Aetna begins offering participating life insurance policies, which paid dividends to policyholders just as the mutuals did, but gave Aetna the ability to better compete in the marketplace. Aetna launches its new product with an aggressive promotional effort, which included higher commission rates for agents. With the outbreak of the Civil War, many companies were thinking of retrenching, not expansion. The devastation of the battlefields combined with a wartime economy sparked a surge in life insurance purchases. The author made use of thirty monographs, each carefully documents, on the different periods and phases of the extraordinary growth of Aetna Life Insurance and its affiliated companies.