John Hancock

John Hancock Life Insurance Company traces its roots to the Civil War era, when it began operating in Massachusetts as a mutual life insurer (the "John Hancock" brand was chosen to signal stability and civic trust).[1] Like many 19th-century mutuals, it scaled through general-agency distribution and disciplined investing-an approach that helped it navigate repeated shocks, including the 1890s panics, the Great Depression, and the inflationary 1970s.[2]

A major strategic turn came around 2000, when the company converted from mutual ownership to a stock structure, giving it added financial flexibility to invest in technology, broaden product lines, and compete in capital-intensive markets.[2] In the mid-2000s, John Hancock became part of Manulife, positioning the U.S. platform inside a global insurer and expanding access to enterprise risk management and capital markets capabilities.[3]

Over time, the franchise leaned into products tied to American retirement needs-individual and group life, investment-oriented policies, and retirement plan services-while continually refining underwriting and asset-liability management as interest rates swung from very high to very low.[3] Like most life insurers, it uses reinsurance and portfolio management to manage mortality and longevity risk; public histories and regulator profiles typically describe the approach at a high level rather than naming a single long-term reinsurer across decades.[2]

Sources: [1] https://interactive.web.insurance.ca.gov/companyprofile/companyprofile?doFunction=getCompanyProfile&event=companyProfile&naic=65099 ; [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hancock_Financial ; [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manulife