A Company's Growth in a Difficult Time

In the countless years during which the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company functioned on the Pacific coast, the population of the region has increased tenfold. The urban group among whom the Metropolitan was particularly active is now countless times its size in 1901. At the beginning of the century about 1,500,000 people were engaged in gainful work; today this figure has grown incredibly. This active labor force, the Metropolitan\'s chosen market, engaged in a variety of occupations.

Normally, 20 per­cent were in trade, predominantly retail, 16 percent were in manufacturing, and 15 percent were engaged in agriculture. However, shifts in the population and growth in certain industries due to the Second World War undoubt­edly made for considerable change in these distributions.

Forty-two years is a short time indeed in the life of a great business. Yet these years established the Pacific coast head office as one of the country\'s leading insurance organizations. Figures which seem best to illustrate its growth list increased in every branch. The number of the head office\'s employees expanded from 53 in 1901 to more than 1,200 in 1942, and the field force grew from 538 to more than 1,200. The amount of industrial business in force grew from around $16,000,000 to more than $500,000,000.

Whereas there was a little more than $850,000 in ordinary in force at the end of the year of the territory\'s founding, at the end of 1942 it amounted to more than $930,000,000. The 1942 income of the head office ($54,000,000) was 43 percent greater than that for the entire company when the head office was estab­lished in 1901.

Yet figures alone cannot describe the position which the company achieved in its coast territory in that era. In spite of the handicaps of great distances, peculiar health hazards, and sparse population, the territory benefitted in numerous ways through the influence of the Metropolitan.

That the original party which left New York in 1901 to found the Western office built well, was attested by the 1,500,000 policyholders on the coast to whom the company was more than a financial institution. It was to them, rather, a constructive and benevolent factor in the affairs of this broad area. As its beautiful building was a landmark on the hills of San Francisco, so its accomplishments in protection, in health education, and in assistance to the community as a whole were landmarks in the scheme of social and economic progress.

Forty-two years is a short time indeed in the life of a great business. Yet these years established the Pacific coast head office as one of the country\'s leading insurance organizations.