1902
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The first training classes for new insurance agents are introduced. |
1909
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The first modern Home Purchase plan, renamed Assured Home Ownership, is developed and becomes a major industry product for five decades. |
1911
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Equitable sells the first modern Group Life policy to the Pantasote Leather Company, followed by Montgomery Ward the next year.
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1912
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Before dawn on January 9, a fire starts in the basement of a cafe at 120 Broadway. Employees arrive to find the building engulfed in flames. Within hours, Equitable's home office is a pile of smoldering timbers. However, by 11 a.m. a telegraph is sent to 200 newspapers announcing that the Equitable is still in business.
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1915
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A massive new building arises from the ashes at 120 Broadway. Equitable's new office is the largest office building in the world. Occupying a full city block and stretching 39 stories, it includes six miles of marble-floored corridors, 1.2 million square feet of rentable space and accommodations for 13,000 workers.
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1924
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Equitable moves to 393 Seventh Avenue at 32nd Street. Described as a "workshop," the only touch of luxury in the new building is the lobby, with its white marble steps and high vaulted ceiling engraved with gilded renderings of Equitable's logo. A state-of-the-art pneumatic tube system transports documents from office to office within the building.
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1927
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Edward Woods, Equitable's Agency Manager in Pittsburgh, and Solomon S. Huebner of the American College of Life Insurance, launch a professional program for Chartered Life Underwriters.
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1951
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Individual In-Hospital Major Medical Expense insurance is developed by Equitable. |
1961
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Equitable opens a new 42-story home office building, at 1285 Avenue of the Americas, the largest building in the country occupied by a single company.
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1968
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Equitable introduces its first line of individual variable annuity products. |
1976
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Equitable's EVLICO subsidiary pioneers variable life insurance, the first investment-oriented insurance product to command a significant market share.
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1985
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Investment firm Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) and its money management arm, Alliance Capital Management, L.P., are acquired by Equitable. |
1985
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Mutuelles Unies, after aquiring two other French insurers, requires a new name to capture its vision of uniting its companies into a group with an international reach. Seeking a name that is short, catchy and easy to pronounce in every language, the AXA brand is launched. |
1986
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A new limestone and granite edifice, known as the Equitable Center, opens at 787 Seventh Avenue. Eye-catching, massive architecture and public art characterize the building, most notably with Roy Lichtenstein's Mural with a Blue Brush Stroke, a 68-foot by 32-foot pop art painting that the artist painted in place. |
1989
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AXA becomes the second largest insurer in France, as it merges with Compagnie du Midi. |
