MetLife 2009 Annual Report Download - page 3

Chairman’s Letter
To my fellow shareholders:
In my letter to you last year, I talked about some of the attributes that define and
differentiate MetLife — our financial strength, our leading position in the insurance
industry and the guarantees we provide our customers. In 2009, these attributes once
again proved to be critically important, and enabled us to grow premiums, fees & other
revenues 4% over 2008. This growth was achieved in one of the most challenging
economic environments seen in decades, proving that MetLife’s customers value what
we bring to the marketplace — demonstrated expertise in meeting their long-term financial needs.
As shareholders of this great company, you know that our extensive track record of success can also be
attributed to the long-term view we take. Over time, we have built leading insurance and retirement businesses with
tremendous scale which, when combined with our unwavering focus on meeting client needs, have enabled us to
increase market share and further strengthen our leadership positions.
Extending Our Lead in the U.S.
Last August, we took a bold step in reorganizing our businesses in the United States to position MetLife for
further success. Specifically, we combined the former Institutional and Individual Businesses, as well as our Auto &
Home unit, into a single organization now called U.S. Business. This realignment recognized that we can better
serve both employee benefit plan sponsors and individual customers through a single, integrated organization.
In U.S. Business — which consists of Insurance Products, Retirement Products, Corporate Benefit Funding
and Auto & Home — premiums, fees & other revenues grew 2% over 2008 to $28.6 billion. Importantly, this growth
was achieved while we simultaneously maintained our pricing and risk management discipline. Briefly, I would like to
share some highlights of the performance of these businesses to illustrate how our financial strength, scale and
experience are benefiting us:
•InInsurance Products, premiums, fees & other revenues increased 4% as each of the businesses that
make up this segment — group life, individual life and non-medical health — grew over 2008. The scale that
MetLife has built in a number of group businesses has enabled us to generate profitable growth, and this was
particularly the case with our group life and non-medical health businesses, where we continue to maintain
leading market positions. On the individual side, we also saw strong demand for our whole and term life
insurance products, sales of which grew 46% and 23%, respectively.
• The demand for the guarantees associated with many of our annuity products helped drive a 5% increase in
premiums, fees & other revenues in our Retirement Products business. In addition, total annuity deposits
grew 10%. In 2009, we also maintained our leading position in the annuity marketplace, ending the year as the
number one seller of annuities, according to VARDS and LIMRA.
• Financial strength and long-term experience are just two factors that have made us a leader and expert in
providing pension closeouts, structured settlements and other solutions that make up our Corporate
Benefit Funding business. During 2009, we continued to capture market share in the structured settlement
business, growing premiums for this product line 53% over 2008. In addition, our long history of developing
innovative pension risk transfer solutions enabled us to generate $944 million in pension closeout premiums.
•OurAuto & Home business also had another solid year, with sales of new policies increasing 10% over
2008. Today, we remain the largest provider of group auto and home insurance and this business continues to
generate strong profits for MetLife, ending the year with an excellent return on equity of 18% and a combined
ratio of 92.3%.