"MetLife's 'Better Health Campaign'"

In 1908, MetLife created a “welfare department” dedicated to “wag[ing] war on disease, and some of its underlying causes such as ignorance, insanitation, and poverty.” The company’s first target was tuberculosis—the greatest threat to life insurers. Anyone could potentially be stricken (young adults were particularly susceptible), the early symptoms were easy to hide (or misinterpret), and prior exposure most likely raised rather than lowered the probability of future infection. The company estimated that 18% of all of MetLife’s industrial life insurance death claims in 1909 were from tuberculosis.
MetLife instituted a multi-pronged attack on this disease. First, they waged a public education campaign which focused on preventative education. One of the welfare department’s first actions was to publish an eight-page pamphlet explaining the causes, prevention, and treatment of the disease. It initially printed 3.5 million copies in ten different languages, and had agents disperse them throughout the communities where they sold life insurance. Second, the company partnered with local nursing services to bring health care directly to policyholders. When agents witnessed policyholders in need of medical care, they would send a nurse at the company’s expense. Third, it successfully sued the New York State insurance commissioner to allow it to use company funds to build and maintain a sanatorium for sick employees.
This idea that corporations have duties to the wider public beyond their shareholders was once at the heart of the corporate model; by 1910 it was becoming highly contested terrain. While MetLife’s efforts to combat tuberculosis would likely improve their long-term profitability, these efforts could not be isolated to policyholders. MetLife was attempting to return the corporation to a model of corporate citizenship. While profit was still essential, they would need to be legitimated by a positive impact on the public welfare.