Metropolitan Life Insurance CompanyMET

Morningstar Rating

Stock Research and Analysis

by Drew Woodbury

MetLife is the largest life insurer in the United States. However, we don't believe its size alone creates a competitive advantage sufficient to yield an economic moat, and we are downgrading our moat rating from narrow to none. The negative industry Read more

Bulls Say

MetLife's suite of insurance products from annuities, traditional life insurance, and auto insurance benefit from significant cross-selling opportunities.

By being more conservative than its peers with its hedging programs and raising capital early, MetLife may be able to steal business from weaker peers.

The large corporate customers that buy MetLife's group policies usually don't shop exclusively on price. The firm benefits from long-term relationships and sticky customers. Read more

Bears Say

Despite its scale MetLife is largely at the whim of the competitive life insurance industry.

In its drive to expand internationally the firm is at risk of paying too much for an acquisition or executing poorly in an unfamiliar market.

MetLife keeps a small sliver of equity relative to its investment portfolio. Seemingly minor write-downs can have large impacts on common equity. Read more

Strategy

MetLife seeks to maintain its leadership position in the group insurance market and relies on established relationships and increasing its distribution capacity to cross-sell its voluntary products, Read more

Management

C. Robert Henrikson has served as Chairman and CEO of MetLife since 2006. While we would prefer to see these two roles separated, we appreciate Henrikson's 36-year career through the ranks of MetLife. Though not high as a percentage of shares outstanding, Read more

Profile

MetLife provides myriad insurance and financial services to individual and institutional customers through several distribution channels. The firm offers life insurance, Read more

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