Policyowners 〉

A Legacy of Helping Others

Detroit, February 1933. It was the height of the Great Depression and banks were shut. That month, temperatures dropped to 13 below and people ran out of coal to heat schools, hospitals, orphanages, and homes. A MassMutual customer, who was a coal dealer, visited the MassMutual agency to ask for a loan to release a shipment of coal from the railroads, borrowing against his life insurance policy. The agency didn’t have enough cash on hand, but called the MassMutual home office, three central banks, and a local branch to get the policyowner the money he needed to keep people warm. Today, our financial professionals remain a trusted resource in the face of life’s challenges, from processing a claim when a loved one passes away to making plans for retirement.

2017 Customer Initiatives

When we expand our services, we become better able to help people protect the ones they love. MassMutual is investing in new tools powered by data to help us better know — and better serve — our policyowners.

Deepening Our Understanding of Americans Everywhere

Understanding policyowners’ needs and priorities allows us to better help them reach their goals. MassMutual commissioned the College Planning & Saving Study to learn how families think about budgeting for college. The study surveyed parents and guardians and examined how people from different ethnic groups think and act when it comes to financial planning. With this information, our advisors can better connect with families from all backgrounds and help them achieve their financial and educational dreams.

The College Planning & Saving Study adds to MassMutual’s growing picture of American attitudes about money matters, including recent research into the particular financial experiences and challenges of African Americans, Latinos, Chinese Americans, Korean Americans, Asian Indians, and Caucasians.

LifeBridge has issued more than
$695 million
in free coverage

Helping Parents Protect Children’s Educational Futures

Parents should be able to fulfill the dream of providing a quality education for their children – even if they can’t be there to see it happen. That’s the goal of MassMutual’s LifeBridge Free Life Insurance Program. The program pays all premiums for a $50,000 term life insurance policy that is issued to a trust that pays for children’s educational expenses in the event that a parent or guardian dies.

Money can be used to pay for tuition, fees, books, campus room and board, and other educational expenses at preschools, private schools, trade schools, or colleges and universities. The only program of its kind, LifeBridge has issued more than 13,900 policies representing more than $695 million in free coverage to income eligible families — with an ultimate goal to issue coverage worth $1 billion.

Enhancing the Customer Experience Through Data

Because we’re for technology that helps us serve one another better, MassMutual is investing in digital, big data, and analytics to help us provide a superior experience for our policyowners. That includes LifeScore360, an exciting new initiative that uses data science to create the first individual mortality risk scoring system of its kind for the life insurance industry. We took our commitment global in 2017 by opening a new data science operation in Hong Kong through MassMutual subsidiary MassMutual International LLC. Our work in this data-rich marketplace will focus on creating algorithms and predictive models that use hundreds of millions of data points to help us better understand health and behavior.

70 Years
of experience in the pension plan market

Measuring the Health of Employers’ Pension Plans

MassMutual has more than 70 years of experience in the pension plan market. Now, we’re sharing the wisdom we’ve gained over those years with the new PensionSmart Analysis tool. The tool provides insights into the health of an employer’s pension, detailing a plan’s current status, funding level or health, service structure, and a comparison to pension plans sponsored by other employers in the same industry. With the results of the analysis, plan sponsors can work with MassMutual pension experts to get advice about achieving their goals, from continuing their commitments to mitigating risk. At a time when experienced support for pension plans is becoming harder to obtain, MassMutual is offering resources to help employers manage complex financial issues and meet their obligations.