Liberty Mutual Group, more commonly known by the name of its primary line of business, Liberty Mutual Insurance, is an American diversified global insurer, and the second-largest property and casualty insurer in the United Statest ranks 76th on the Fortune 100 list of largest corporations in the United States based on 2013 revenue. Liberty Mutual Group owns, wholly or in part, local insurance companies in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China (including Hong Kong), Colombia, Ecuador, India, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Venezuela and Vietnam.
In the United States, Liberty Mutual remains a mutual company where policyholders holding contracts for insurance are considered shareholders in the company. However, Liberty Mutual Group's brand usually operates as a separate entity outside the United States. In other countries, subsidiaries are often created in countries where legally recognized mutual company benefits cannot be enjoyed.
The current CEO is David H. Long. He succeeded his predecessor Edmund (Ted) F. Kelly on June 29, 2011.
Early history
Liberty Mutual was founded in 1912 as the Massachusetts Employees’ Insurance Association (MEIA), following passage of a Massachusetts state law requiring employers to protect their employees with workers’ compensation insurance in 1911.The first branch office was opened in 1914, and later that year, the company wrote its first automobile insurance policy. The company was founded as a Massachusetts Mutual Company, where its insureds have ownership in the company. The name was changed in 1917 to the Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and, through partnerships, the company began offering full-coverage auto policies.
Growth and acquisitions
Liberty Mutual's growth has been both organic and through acquisition. Early acquisitions were small, but Liberty Mutual has made several large acquisitions over the past decade, including the high-profile acquisition of Safeco Corporation in 2008. Liberty Mutual agreed to acquire all outstanding shares of Safeco for $68.25 per share, for a total transaction price of approximately $6.2 billion. The result of this activity was an increase in revenue from $6 billion to over $30 billion in twelve years. In 1999, the company purchased Wausau Insurance Cos.
Liberty Mutual created a television commercial in 2006 about people doing good things for strangers, reporting that the "overwhelming" positive response they received for the ad led to their decision to create the website The Responsibility Project.
Strategic business units
rty Mutual conducts all of its business through four strategic business units: Personal Insurance, Commercial Insurance, Liberty International, and Global Specialty
Personal insurance
Passenger automobile, homeowners, life, annuity, and other property and casualty insurance products are available via Liberty Mutual's Personal Insurance line. These products are branded under the Liberty Mutual Insurance and Safeco names, and are distributed via a vast network of over 2,300 sales professionals. Other distribution means are call centers, third-party producers, and the company's own website. Over 10,000 insurance agencies across the United States carry Safeco-branded products.
Subsidiary companies[edit]
Helmsman Management Services
Liberty International Underwriters (LIU)
Liberty Mutual Surety (LMS)
Liberty Mutual Reinsurance (LMR)
Liberty Specialty Markets (LSM)
Liberty Mutual Agency Corporation
America First Insurance
Colorado Casualty
Golden Eagle Insurance
Indiana Insurance
Liberty Mutual Surety
Liberty Northwest
Liberty SuretyFirst
Montgomery Insurance
Ohio Casualty
Ohio Security
West American
Peerless Insurance
Safeco
Peerless Insurance
Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety
Founded in 1954, the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety has studied the occupational safety and health of workers. Its scientific contributions include machine safeguarding guidelines, the Cornell-Liberty Survival Car, and ergonomic guidelines that have informed the basis for national and international safety standards. More recently, the Institute developed the Workplace Safety Index, which is an annual ranking of the leading causes of the most disabling occupational injuries in the United States.
The Institute's scientists conduct field and laboratory experiments to study the major causes of work-related injury and disability, publishing their results in peer-reviewed scientific literature. Institute findings are the basis for safety programs, recommendations, and software used by Liberty Mutual loss control consultants in order to help policyholders enhance worker safety. The Institute’s work is non-proprietary, and is available to the publicNational schemes have the advantage that the pool or pools tend to be very very large and reflective of the national population. Health care costs, which tend to be high at certain stages in life such as during pregnancy and childbirth and especially in the last few years of life can be paid into the pool over a lifetime and be higher when earnings capacity is greatest to meet costs incurred at times when earnings capacity is low or non existent. This differs from the private insurance schemes that operate in some countries which tend to price insurance year on year according to health risks such as age, family history, previous illnesses, and height/weight ratios. Thus some people tend to have to pay more for their health insurance when they are sick and/or are least able to afford it. These factors are not taken into consideration in NHI schemes. In private schemes in competitive insurance markets, these activities by insurance companies tend to act against the basic principles of insurance which is group solidarity.
National health insurance schemes
See also: Universal health coverage by country
Health care in Australia - Medicare (Australia)
Healthcare in Belgium - Sickness and Invalidity Insurance
Healthcare in Germany
Health care in Ghana - National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS)
Health care in Colombia - Law 100 - National Health Insurance Scheme: Contributory Vs. Subsidized coverage (NHIS)
Health care in Japan - People without insurance through employers can participate in a national health insurance program administered by local governments.
Health care in France
Healthcare in South Korea
Healthcare in Switzerland - A compulsory health insurance covers a range of treatments which are set out in detail in the Federal Act.
Healthcare in Taiwan - National Health Insurance (NHI)
Healthcare in Nigeria - National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS)
Health care in Canada
Healthcare in the Philippines - Social Health Insurance Program, a resource pooling, risk sharing health care program that provides quality health care financing not only to the employed but to the sick, elderly, and indigents, as well
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
See also[edit]
Health care compared - tabular comparisons of the US, Canada, and other countries not shown above.
Health care politics
Publicly funded health care
Single-payer health care.