1853: Incorporated as the Aetna Life Insurance Company with a second-floor office in Hartford. The first life-insurance claim is paid to the family of a yellow-fever victim, Herman B. Harris, who was trying to reach the California gold fields.
1872: Massive fire in Boston causes a financial crisis for the young firm, forcing it to issue $1 million in new stock to cover losses. But all policyholders are paid in full.
1879: Morgan G. Bulkeley, who would become a giant in company history, is named president, a position he holds for the next 43 years. During that period he also served as Hartford mayor for eight years, Connecticut governor for four years and U.S. senator for six years. Hartford’s Bulkeley High School and the Bulkeley Bridge are named in his honor.
1888: Home office moves to 650 Main St. in Hartford with 31 employees.
1906: Company suffers major financial losses due to the San Francisco earthquake, but Aetna recovers and pays all policyholders 100 percent.
1908: First woman employee hired in the home office: telephone operator Julia Kinghorn.
1931: The massive Colonial-style home office on Farmington Avenue opens.
1933: In the depths of the Depression, Aetna provides no dividend for stockholders for the first time since 1862. The company avoids layoffs at a time when the national unemployment rate is 25 percent.
1941: U.S. enters World War II. More than 3,000 Aetna employees served in the war, and 76 died.
1953: To celebrate the company’s 100th anniversary, Aetna throws a massive bash for 8,000 people on the headquarters grounds, complete with a 200-pound birthday cake and performances by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, drummer Buddy Rich, and comedian Henny Youngman.
1956: In a company-sponsored book, Aetna publishes copies of the policies taken out on the lives of slaves.
1968: Aetna stock sold for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange.
1974: Aetna helps bring the Whalers hockey team to Hartford.
1975: The Hartford Civic Center, co-developed by Aetna, opens.
1984: Legendary chairman John H. Filer retires early. James T. Lynn named chairman.
1991: After announcing a major internal reorganization the previous year, Aetna sells its individual health business after 93 years. The firm also withdraws from selling personal automobile policies in many states.
1992: Hurricane Andrew blows through Florida, causing more than 10,000 claims against Aetna in the company’s single costliest catastrophe on record. Overall, the storm caused more than $16 billion in losses.
December 1992: General Counsel Zoe Baird becomes the best-known Aetna employee when she is nominated by President Clinton to be U.S. Attorney General. The nomination is withdrawn after it was revealed that Baird hired an illegal alien as a nanny and failed to pay Social Security and other taxes for her.
1996: Property-casualty lines are sold to Travelers for $4 billion, and the money goes toward purchase of Pennsylvania-based U.S. Healthcare for about $9 billion.
July 1997: Ronald E. Compton retires as chief executive officer, and ex-banker Richard L. Huber takes over as CEO. Compton says Huber is “exactly the right person” to lead Aetna into the future, and Compton later says that buying U.S. Healthcare was “strategically the biggest and best” accomplishment of his tenure.
December 1998: Aetna announces it will buy money-losing Prudential HealthCare for $1 billion. Aetna’s stock price slides later as investors learn that Prudential’s losses will be higher than projected.
1999: Facing major problems integrating U.S. Healthcare operations, Aetna’s stock price continues to weaken.
Adding insult to injury, Aetna loses the largest jury award ever against a U.S. health insurer when the company is ordered to pay $120 million for delaying and denying approvals for payment of treatments for a California man who later died of stomach cancer. The company is still appealing. Separately, the loose-tongued Huber and the company are sued for libel for saying the case involved “a skillful ambulance-chasing lawyer, a politically motivated judge, and a weeping widow.” The libel suit was later dismissed by a federal judge.
October 1999: Along with other HMOs, Aetna is the target of high-profile lawsuits by trial lawyers who charge that the company was placing profits before patients.
February 18, 2000: Aetna’s stock price hits 5-year low of $38.69.
February 24: Aetna receives an unsolicited, $10 billion takeover offer from the Dutch ING Group and California’s WellPoint Health Networks to buy the entire company for $70 per share.
February 25: The board asks for Huber’s resignation and replaces him with William H. Donaldson, a 23-year veteran of the board.
March 1: Takeover offer is made public, but 11 days later Aetna turns thumbs down on the deal and says it will split into two companies.
May 2000: ING Group returns with an offer to buy the financial services and international units.
July 19, 2000: After suffering another stock-price hit because earnings will not meet expectations, Aetna agrees to sell its divisions to ING for $7.7 billion.
