Episode summary
MetLife's CEO Explains How AI Has Helped the Insurance Company | At Barron's
At Barron's
· · 22 min · Hosts: Andy Serwer · Guests: Michel Khalaf
Summary
MetLife’s CEO Michel Khalaf says the company is differentiated by scale, diversification, and capital discipline. He describes MetLife as a global financial services company with 40 markets, more than 100 million customers, a leading U.S. group benefits business, a top-two institutional retirement franchise, and a large asset management platform after the PineBridge acquisition. He argues that group benefits is especially attractive because it is capital-light, requires ongoing investment, and has been growing above market for years.
Khalaf frames MetLife’s current strategy as a continuation of a successful transformation. He says the earlier Next Horizon plan, following the retail spin-off, exceeded its goals and delivered 100% shareholder return from 2020 to 2024. New Frontier is intended to push the company toward double-digit EPS growth over time.
He is positive on private equity’s move into insurance, especially in retirement, and says a level playing field and adequate capital standards matter. On AI, Khalaf says MetLife has used it first to cut costs, but increasingly to improve productivity and growth, citing auto-adjudicating nine times more claims and responding to RFPs four times faster.
Key takeaways
- Khalaf says MetLife’s edge comes from scale, diversification, and disciplined capital deployment, not from competing in retail insurance.
- He calls group benefits the most attractive part of the business and says MetLife is three times the size of its nearest competitor.
- He says the Next Horizon strategy exceeded commitments and produced 100% shareholder return from 2020 to 2024.
- Khalaf says PineBridge should expand MetLife Investment Management, especially into Asia and other non-U.S. markets.
- He says AI is now helping MetLife both reduce expenses and accelerate growth, including claims processing and broker response times.
Notable quotes
“MetLife is a global financial services uh company um with a singular purpose, uh building confident futures”
“I consider group benefits to be the most attractive segment of the life uh industry”
“We achieved our the objective that we set out uh as part of the Next Horizon strategy”
“We believe in a singular in one platform. Uh so, that's that's the plan is one MetLife Investment Management”
How the episode opens
Hello everyone and welcome to at Barron's. I'm Andy Serwer and welcome to our guest Michel Khalaf, CEO of MetLife. Michel, so great to see you. Thanks for joining us.
Thank you for having me. Good to be here. So, my first question is how is MetLife differentiated from its peers?
Big insurance company obviously, but how are you different? Sure. Um so, maybe just take a step back and uh you know, for those who don't know MetLife, uh just you know, talk about the company a little bit in the context of who we are now.
Um MetLife is a global financial services uh company um with a singular purpose, uh building confident futures. We've been around for close to 160 years. Uh really helping uh people, uh businesses, institutions um plan, uh protect uh and invest uh for financial security.
Um you know, today MetLife is uh in 40 markets around the world. Uh and we serve over 100 million customers. Um our main businesses uh are group benefits here in the US where we're market leaders.
I consider group benefits to be the most attractive segment of the life uh industry. Um we are a top two player in institutional retirement here in the US. Uh we have a strong international footprint.
Uh we're a top multinational in Japan. We're the number one life insurer in Latin America. Uh and we have a scaled asset management business, 700 740 billion in assets under management after the acquisition of PineBridge uh recently.
Um so, uh you know, MetLife today I think is different uh in in a few uh ways. One uh is our scale. Um and that's important in the context of meeting uh customer expectations and the need to continuously invest in the business.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- ai in insurance
- metlife ceo interview
- insurance technology
Companies and tickers mentioned
- MET
- MetLife
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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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